


Lines Between Tattoos

by bluerosebouquet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, M/M, Referenced Dean Winchester/Lee Webb, Sex Worker Dean Winchester, Tattoo Artist Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 81,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluerosebouquet/pseuds/bluerosebouquet
Summary: Dean Winchester is many things: a kickass tattoo artist, Charlie Bradbury's finest wingman, best big brother in the world, hater of the MTA, but one thing he is not is a romantic.  He doesn't believe in meet-cutes or love at first sight, that kinda stuff is for rom-coms that he secretly watches when no one is around. Until he meets Castiel, the stupidly handsome art dealer who just keeps showing up in Dean's life, and always manages to turn Dean's ideas of how you're supposed to feel about someone on their heads.A story about finding love in a city that never slows down, the ink we leave on our skin, and what we hide under it.
Relationships: Andrea Kormos/Benny Lafitte, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Lee Webb/Dean Winchester
Comments: 152
Kudos: 497
Collections: SPN Best Works, Takeout Tacos, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Midtown

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is by far the longest fic I've ever written, and is born out of eight months of dreaming, scheming, and finally putting pen to paper to create a very long love letter to New York City and my two boys.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! :)
> 
> -Lilly

Dean hates things like this. Sam should be thanking his lucky stars that Dean is the greatest big brother in the whole universe and agreed to come with him. An art gallery opening in swanky rich midtown Manhattan is not how he wants to spend his night off of work, thank you very much. Not only that, but Sam had grumbled at him until he had changed from ripped up jeans into _slacks_, and he had been forced into a stiff button down, he wasn’t even allowed to wear one of his t shirts, and a fucking tie, how disgusting.

Despite Sam's protestations, he refuses to take out his lip ring or the industrial bar in his left ear, and there’s nothing he can do to hide the rose that peeks its way out of his collar, red and delicate green contrasting with the starched white, but it only garners them a few stares, hopefully he doesn’t attract the attention of the people that matter, that is, the law partners that Sam was trying to impress.

The second they walk in the door some dude offers to take their coats. Dean really wants to refuse because he doesn’t like his shit being out of his sight, even at some swanky art gallery, but Sam’s face tells him he doesn’t have a choice in the matter, so he hands it off to the dude, who gives him a numbered card in return. Cool. Weird. Some band is playing jazz that Dean associates with mall bathrooms, there’s recessed mood lighting, and people in tuxedos and dresses that probably cost more than their entire apartment building. Dean notices that there’s an open bar with a dude that looks like a penguin serving top shelf liquor for no charge. Fuck yeah.

They’ve barely stepped in the door before Sam is immediately whisked away by some insanely gorgeous dark-haired chick named Ruby, who barely spares a glace for Dean as she leads Sam away towards some mighty arrogant looking people. But, Dean’s not here to judge, he’s here to be silent moral support and hang out in the corner hitting up the open bar until Sam’s done with the rich assholes he's supposed to be impressing.

Dean swaggers over to the bar, getting the fanciest whiskey he can and hides out in a corner, watching Sam as he clearly impressed, making the fancy-schmancy lawyers laugh and chatter. Dean steals a mini quiche from a passing penguin-looking waiter and tries to massage the feeling back into his hand. That four hour thigh piece he had done today had cramped up his hand like a bitch, he’s dog fucking tired, and he knew it would take ten million years to get back to their apartment because the G was down for “construction” which had been going on for, like, six months longer than expected. Man, fuck this fancy art gallery opening being in Hell’s Kitchen, it was gonna be so annoying to get back to Brooklyn.

He really is so proud of Sam, he had graduated top of his class at Stanford and Dean had suffered through the cross-country flight for his graduation, and then they had thrown everything Sam owned into the Impala (which Dean, in a moment of either extreme weakness or total love for Sam, had let him borrow for school) and had taken a three week road trip back to New York, where Sam had taken up residence with Dean in his apartment in Brooklyn. Dean had been able to kick his weirdo roommate Gordon out too, which was a total bonus. Sam’s been courted by a few law firms in town, and this was the third pre-interview thing he had been invited to. The other two had been at the partners’ fancy Chelsea townhouses, so Dean had, mercifully, had not had to be there. But when Sam had begged him to come with him to this one, and Dean couldn’t say no to him, so here he was, hanging out in a dark corner of an art gallery, trying to blend in with the wall.

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to support Sam, but man, after working all day in the shop, he really, really just wanted to take a load off, watching some fucking _Star Trek_, and go to bed.

His eyes sweep the room, looking for something to stop the boredom already creeping into his mind. He locks eyes with a guy across the room. He’s tall, tan, and just all around unfairly good-looking, right up Dean’s alley, and right out of boredom territory. But his suit screams of money where Dean’s does not, so he doesn’t go straight for the guy, and doesn’t put on his flirty face which can get him into bed with almost anyone, and opts to go back to the bar, getting another whiskey and like four more mini quiches because they’re just that good. When he turns around though, the guy with the fancy suit and the messy black hair is still staring at him and Dean does not miss the hunger in the guy’s eyes, so Dean starts to take a lap around the gallery, trying to be interested in the art on the walls.

Look, it’s not like he doesn’t like and appreciate art. Hell, he’s an artist himself, except he works on skin and not on canvas, but man, sometimes modern art just goes way over his head. He passes a painting that’s completely white, that’s it. Just a white canvas. And one of these schmucks is going to probably pay like a million dollars for it.

He stops in the far corner of the gallery, where it’s a little bit darker, the mood lighting and the jazz music are a little dimmer, and the artwork on the walls are a little more interesting, at least to Dean, anyway. Plus, there aren’t as many old Upper East Side ladies staring at him, so he takes the risk and rolls up the sleeves of his supremely uncomfortable dress shirt to his elbows. He feels a little more like himself now, less like he’s been forced into a ridiculous costume, and maybe it’s stupid but he feels a little better now that some of his tattoos were visible. Look, he just didn’t like to come across as a straight-laced guy, okay?

He glances at the painting he’s standing next to and actually kind of does a double take. Look, if you asked him, most of the crap in this gallery was just that, crap, but this was actually pretty cool. He read the little card next to it, _Apocalipsitora, Oil on Canvas_. It sure did look like something out of an apocalypse. Primarily black and grey, almost a battle scene, with splotches of red here and there. He stares at it for more than a couple of minutes, taking in the swaths if paint, thick in some places, barely there in others. It’s almost like it’s moving, he can hear the screams of the battle, the opponents holding swords, spears crossbows, he can even see some kind of creature in there, not human.

“Interesting piece to seek out,” comes a voice to his right. He looks over and sees dark haired hotness standing next to him, holding a glass of red wine and gazing at the painting with an intensity that made Dean’s hands start to tingle. Okay, he’s even better looking up close, where Dean can see his full lips and killer jawline, a little bit of five o’clock shadow that really just ties the whole obscenely gorgeous thing together. The guy’s really wearing like a four-thousand dollar suit, it fits him just right too, he had obviously gotten it tailored. Dean isn’t normally one to think that suit pants looked really good on someone, but the contrast of the guy’s hair, which looked like he’s just gotten fucked in the bathroom, and the way the crisp navy blue pants hug his hips is more than a little unfair.

“Yeah, I guess, most interesting one in here to me,” Dean says, trying his damndest not to turn up the charm on this guy. _This is for Sam, not a time to flirt and remember what happened the last time you flirted with someone at one of Sam’s events._ Yeah, fucking Sam’s undergrad advisor was…not a good look.

“Why’s that?” Hotness asks, and Dean snaps back to the present.

Dean takes a moment to take in the painting. It’s violent, angry, maybe he relates to it a little too much.

“Every time you look at it, you see something new, like it’s changing in front of you, never the same each time, you know?”

It sounds kinda lame, even to him, but Sex Hair doesn’t seem to think so, he surveys Dean with interest. Their eyes meet. Whoa. Super blue. _Dammit Dean not now_, he chastises himself.

“Fascinating. I’m always interested to hear what people say about the art, and not just the bullshit ‘it makes me think of life and death’ or whatever it is people think I want to hear.”

“What’s your favorite thing in here, then?”

The guy’s eyes travel down Dean, like he’s being x-rayed, and Dean finds himself desperately hoping that this guy isn’t one of the law partners Sam is supposed to impress.

“Hm, I stare at them all day, so it changes by the hour I suppose.”

“You the artist?”

“No, no, art dealer, I curated the gallery.”

So he was probably rich as fuck. New York City man, you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting someone who probably had a yacht in the Hamptons or something.

“Oh, that’s cool.”

“Castiel Novak,” the guy offers his hand, which Dean takes, knowing that his outstretched hand will fully display the tattoos on his arms and hands, which will probably scare Mr. Rich Art Dealer off. Castiel gives a good handshake. Firm, not too long. He had always been taught that a person’s handshake, and Castiel gave a good one.

“Dean Winchester.”

“So, Dean Winchester, if you’re not interested in the art, why do you find yourself at a gallery opening?”

“Oh, uh, well, my brother Sam just graduated from law school, he’s meeting some partners from some firm to talk business or whatever, and he was too nervous to come alone so-”

“Here you are.”

“Yeah, here I am.”

“I do find these things tedious as well.”

“That must suck, since you’re an art dealer.”

Castiel laughs at that. The throw back your head, full throated laugh that invites anyone in its proximity to join in. And Dean does, they laugh together in the secluded corner of the gallery, Dean suddenly very aware that Castiel was sort of in his personal space which he normally hated, but maybe it's his eyes or the way he licks his lips when he looks at Dean, Dean doesn't mind.

“You do get used to it, but meeting so many people that I don’t care a bit about gets-”

Right on cue, a woman in a sleek black dress approaches them and taps Castiel on the shoulder.

“So sorry to pull you away, Mr. Novak, but there’s a prospective buyer who wants to speak to you about _#34_.”

“Yes, thank you Hannah, I’ll be right there.”

Castiel looks Dean up and down again, taking in his tattoos for a second, it makes Dean viscerally uncomfortable but in a very very very good way…if that makes sense.

“Would it be too forward to ask you not to leave until I get back?”

Oof, that was a good line, even for Dean. He feels himself flushing a little, blaming it on the whiskey and not the fact that this guy was ten kinds of beautiful and made Dean’s mouth really dry, like he hadn’t had any water for the last fifty years or so.

“Yeah, I mean no, yeah,” he sounds like a goddamn idiot, “I can hang around.”

Castiel smiles at him and then walks over to some, no doubt, exceedingly rich people. Probably to sell a blank white painting for more than Dean’s yearly rent, _plus_ how much he pays to park the Impala.

Dean does his best to not look at Castiel, and the animated way he moves his hands, easily wrapping the rich upper crust of New York around his ridiculously delicate fingers, making them laugh, laughing at their jokes in return, but not, Dean notices, the way that he laughed with Dean. These laughs were for business, putting the people at ease, more willing to pull out their wallets for a painting that would hang in their front rooms, never to really be studied again. A piece to brag about, not to look at.

Dean rubs the back of his neck distractedly, looking around for Sam. He kinda wants to leave, even though super-hot sex hair Castiel had asked him not to. It’s not like he’s nervous, don’t be fucking ridiculous, he doesn’t get nervous, but it _does_ make him slightly uneasy when a guy who is so much higher up on the capitalist food chain is seemingly into him. Call him shallow or whatever, but he’s wary of people that, as a group, usually think they’re better than him. But Sam’s still knee-deep in rich attorney schmooze-zone, so Dean hangs out in his corner, moving his hand in circular motions, like he’s tattooing. Don’t judge, it calms him down.

After a while, Castiel reappears at his shoulder, a smile on his face.

“So sorry to leave you. Now where were we?”

“You sell #62 or whatever?”

“_#34_, and yes I did, you must be a good luck charm.”

“Oh I forgot to mention, I’m a licensed good luck charm. My going rate is $400 per hour.”

“Oh, you charge hourly?”

“Yeah, how else is a girl supposed to make a living?” Dean snarks, falling into flirting with Castiel as easy as breathing.

“Guess I better pay up then,” Castiel says, x-raying Dean again and taking a step closer to him.

“Guess you better,” Dean chokes out, sort of feeling like his brain’s being liquefied every time Castiel looks at him.

“So what is it that you do when not giving people bouts of good luck?”

“I’m a tattoo artist, own a shop in Brooklyn, actually. Kashmir Studio.”

“Like the material?”

“Nah, like the Led Zeppelin song.”

Castiel surveys him with interest, not judgement, which is what he’s honestly expecting. He doesn’t _mean_ to be a judgmental ass, but in his experience, people who have shitloads of money, or are art dealers, or are art dealers with shitloads of money, tend to be sort of shitty about what he does, the fact that he doesn’t have a degree in English from some Ivy League school, and that he isn’t shy about his body art.

“That’s fascinating, what art style do you typically use?”

Dean stares at him. Goddamn, he may have to marry this guy. Gorgeous and he asks him about tattoo styles?

“A lot of fine line, mostly black and grey, I’ll throw some red in there sometimes, if you’re nice to me. Maybe that’s why I like your painting over there, kinda the color scheme that I use.”

“Interesting, why those colors?”

“Amazing contrast mostly, and you can be really delicate and detailed with mostly black and grey stuff. I’m not really into the old school scene, you know those tattoos you see with thick lines and bright colors? Yeah, that’s what I was trained on, what I apprenticed on, anyway, but I always like the outline stuff, the line work, so I guess I just added to that. You know, I kinda wanted to get into that whole watercolor thing, but I really need a base outline when I work, it almost like gives me anxiety to not have something to fill in. I have watercolor work, I think it looks super fucking cool, but tattooing it? I don’t know, I guess I just need more control, sorta like coloring within the lines, maybe.”

Dean realizes that he’s rambling and probably talking way too much, but Castiel doesn’t seem to mind. His eyes are still on Dean’s face, Dean can feel them, like they’re giving off heat, warming the parts of his body that they touch. You know when you stick your hands in front if a heater on a cold day, when you’ve been walking outside, that kind of gentle heat, soft, almost calming? That’s the kind of heat Castiel’s eyes leave on him, and Dean knows he’s imagining it because he’s had too much whiskey and the light is low and he’s tired from work, but he finds himself wanting to soak it up, wanting to bask in the glow of being under Castiel’s blue eyes.

“Can I tell you something, Dean Winchester, if you promise to keep it a secret.”

_Jesus Christ_.

“Yeah, your secret’s safe with me.”

“Oh thank you very much, I do appreciate it,” Castiel says to him, a playful edge to his voice, but before Dean can respond, Castiel steps forward, so that he’s really into Dean’s space, like literally inches apart, and Dean can feel his own heartbeat loud in his ears as Castiel whispers in his ear,

“I’ve always wanted tattoos, but some of my, ah, older clientele isn’t really into it. Don’t tell anyone, I want to keep my pure high society persona as squeaky clean as possible.”

Dean’s practically swooning but keeps it together enough to say,

“Shit, guess I can’t go yelling about that to the _New York Times_, then.”

Castiel just smirks at him, still very much in Dean’s space. Dean can tell he uses expensive soap, probably French or something. Dean’s brain moves in slow motion, and he’s really caught between pitching himself forward and kissing Castiel or taking about four steps back.

Before he can decide either way, Sam shows up, too nervous and hopped up on post-interview adrenaline to pay any attention to the fact that Dean was pretty much nose to nose with Castiel.

“Hey, you ready to go?”

Dean’s eyes flick to Castiel’s lips for a fraction of a second.

“Yeah,” he says, taking a step back, and breaking the little bubble of…whatever that was brewing between him and Castiel.

He offers his hand to Castiel.

“It was nice meeting you, Dean,” he says, staring not so subtly at Dean’s own lips.

“Yeah,” Dean says, trying desperately to remain casual and missing by about ten miles, “You too. I hope you sell all these weird paintings.”

That laugh again, god it makes Dean feel like someone’s filling him up with warm liquid, from his toes to where their fingers meet. They’re holding contact for way way longer than normal, and it’s so awkward but really hot and Dean really really wanted to stay there and hang out in this dark corner of this fancy art gallery with this guy whose dark hair he could easily keep messing up and whose eyes burned him like the sting of a tattoo needle. Before Dean does something very stupid in front of Sam, he breaks the handshake and gives Castiel one last smile before turning to Sam and heading towards the door.

As they pick up their coats, turning in their stupid paper tickets to the guy at coat check, Dean sees Castiel talking to some old guy in a tuxedo that looked like it was from 1945. He meets his eyes, like water meeting a tree line, and it takes a little more willpower than Dean would like to tear his eyes away and head out into the chilly fall night.

Dean and Sam head towards the nearest subway station, ignoring the bustling city around them, filled with people weaving in and out of the pavements, heels and boots clicking and thumping on the damp concrete, the sound of sirens and of car horns loud in their ears. Dean loves New York at night, he loves it even though it smells predominately like garbage and piss, and you were more than likely going to see one fight on the street before the night was over. It was one of those cities that you only had to visit once to know how you felt about it. Some people would visit once and then say “never again.” Too big for them, too loud, too dirty, too dangerous. But Dean’s first visit had only made him fall in love, and he loved every part of this huge, sprawling concrete jungle.

Every part, except the fucking MTA.

They got on the L train that took them to Brooklyn, and had to get off in Dumbo instead of the stop that was literally half a block from their apartment because the damn G line was still under construction. He would have driven, but New Yorkers drove like they were absolutely possessed and he didn’t want them to hurt his baby.

“You wanna swing by _Juliana’s_ on the way?” Sam asks, and Dean’s whole face lights up because those mini quiches were _not_ enough for dinner and he was absolutely starving.

As they’re waiting in line for their extra large pepperoni, because you can’t go wrong with the classics, Dean looks at Sam. Not at all the little kid he had put to bed so many nights, and not the gangly teenager he had taught to drive a car, not even the floppy and awkward college grad who went into law school with more naivete than Dean had had in his whole life. Sam, with his hair slicked back and his well-fitting suit that hid the littering of tattoos on his arms, looked like an actual law school graduate, like the kinda guy you would want sitting next to you when you did something wrong. Damn, he was so proud of Sam, so fucking proud of the man he had grown into.

Fuck, he didn’t want anyone to think he was getting misty or anything, so he breaks the easy silence,

“How’d it go, then?”

“Pretty good,” Sam says, eyes brightening at Dean’s question, “I think they liked me, they said they’d get back to me in a couple of days. I think I liked them the best, you know, the first firm was a little too lax and the second one was way too uptight. These guys seemed just right.”

“Like the three bears. Does that make you Goldilocks?”

“Ha ha,” says Sam, punching Dean on the shoulder, “Seriously though, Dean, thanks for coming tonight."

“Yeah man, no problem.”

They get their pizza, and Dean’s practically salivating the second he picks up the box and the bag of garlic knots. Oh fuck yeah, he could probably eat this whole thing by himself, never mind Sam.

They walk down the much quieter streets, heading toward their apartment, no sound but the rumble of the city behind them and the thud of their own boots. It’s nice to have Sam back, especially because Sam is one of the few people on this earth that doesn’t feel the need to fill every empty space with a word, he’s cool with just hanging out in silence, and Dean is too. Maybe they’re related or something.

“Who was that guy you were talking to?” asks Sam as they turn down their street, Dean already fumbling with the keys, eager to get inside and destroy this pizza.

“Art dealer,” he says, definitely not thinking about Castiel’s eyes or his hands or his really nice dark hair, “He was cool, probably just trying to get me to buy one of those super expensive paintings.”

“Yeah? I thought some of that stuff was pretty cool.”

“Of course you did, you’re a freak that loves modern art,” Dean says, unlocking their door and swinging it open, “Call me crazy, but I like paintings that aren’t just blank.”

“Not all modern art is like that, Dean,” Sam chastises him, kicking off his boots and flicking on the light.

Dean was more than a little bit in love with the shabby place on Clermont Avenue, it wasn’t too big but it _was _in Clinton Hill which Dean loved, and it was close to the train, when it was running, that is, and had the best goddamn Italian place in the city right up the block. The kitchen was small and outdated, but Dean had decked it out with chef knives and the best set of cookware he could buy, because damn did he learn to love cooking when he was living on his own. He could even make a fifty-nine cent pack of Ramen taste good, because god knows he lived on those for over a year when he had started working in the city. He and Sam had a big TV with a PlayStation and tons of movies, Dean had his record player in the corner, where he had carefully alphabetized his entire collection of records and ordered them carefully in the cabinet below. The pipes creaked and the radiators hissed more often than not, the toilet broke at least twice a month, and you had to jimmy the door shut just right to actually get it to latch, but it was home, and the best home either of them had ever known.

Dean collapses onto the couch after grabbing two beers from the fridge, toeing off his own boots and picking up the largest piece of pizza he can while Sam turns on the TV.

“You’re an animal,” Sam says, as Dean practically swallows the pizza whole.

“’M like a snake, unhinge my jaw.”

“Gross”, Sam says, getting a plate from the kitchen and tossing the remote to Dean, who immediately puts on _The Great British Baking Show_ and settles in with another piece of pizza as Sam delicately eats his own piece. Bitch.

They stay up way too late catching up on _Baking Show_, and Dean is unashamed to say that he cries when Alice doesn’t think her parents will be able to make it to the final. Sam makes fun of him and Dean beans him in the head with a garlic knot.

Sam passes out in his chair, as usual, around three am, and when Dean feels his own eyes start to get heavy, he makes the concerted effort not to fall asleep on the couch, and drags himself up and into the shower, falling face first onto his bed immediately after.

His bed, okay, his bed was the best damn thing he ever purchased when he got enough money. Sure, he had had to sleep on a floor on an air mattress for almost six months when he had first moved to New York, but when he bought that beautiful memory foam mattress it made his sore back worth it.

Usually, it takes him a while to fall asleep; he often finds himself at his desk sketching for a couple of hours before his eyes would ache and itch and he could finally sleep. But tonight was different, he hit the pillows and immediately starts to drift, he can barely set his alarm for work in the morning before he passes out. And he definitely does not think of Castiel when he falls asleep, that would be weird, creepy, and ridiculous.

He dreams that night about that painting, _Apocalipsitora._ He finds himself in the middle of a black and white battle, naked, without armor or a weapon, watching sprays of blood like popped champagne fly through the air. He feels the wet heat hit his face as a soldier, he can’t tell if they’re human or not, is cut down right in front of him. He hears screaming and the roars of the creature, that huge creature he thought he saw, released, killing dozens in its path. Dean tries to run, to get out of its way, but then he’s trapped under it, looking up at a world that’s black and grey and white and red. The creature crushes his ribcage and he wakes up panting like he’s run miles. His digital clock reads half past five. His breathing slows and he slumps back on his pillows. He doesn’t remember the dream in the morning.


	2. Blue Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Body is the garden of the soul” - Tony Kushner, Angels in America

Dean’s alarm goes off at nine the next morning which, if you asked him, was way way too early. He cuts the annoying blaring of the stock alarm noise off with a heavy hand, rubbing too-little sleep from his eyes and groaning as he pulls back his blackout curtains, shying away from the sunlight like Dracula emerging from a coffin. Hell, he fucking feels like Dracula today, four hours of sleep was not enough, he prefers to hibernate. But staying up until four am watching Bake Off with Sam wasn’t a bad way to spend a night, especially since they got to start marathoning the holiday seasons, which were Dean’s favorite. Sam doesn’t have a job yet, damn him, but Dean’s opening today and has a consultation at 10:15 so he can’t actually be late. 

It’s not cold enough yet for his winter coat, so he opts for his Metallica t shirt and one of his favorite flannels, red and black checkered, and throws on one of his “pre-fall” jackets, just because there was enough of a chill in the air that he knew he’d regret it if he just wore the flannel. It only takes him about five minutes to successfully latch the door (he could fix it himself, but he’d been too lazy to actually get around to it), and then starts walking back towards Dumbo to open the shop. Yeah yeah, trendy ass Dumbo, don’t judge, it brought in enough of the old Brooklyn crowds and the new agey hipsters to make business actually really good. Plus, even though it was super trendy, he actually loved the area, it’s right by the water and is surrounded on all sides by good restaurants, good art, and the best damn organic grocery store Dean has ever set foot in. So yeah, Dumbo definitely has its perks.

Dean unlocks the shop doors at 9:45, cursing his love for _Bake Off_ as he putters around making coffee. They only keep good stuff in the shop, organic shit that Pamela buys, and Dean definitely doesn’t complain because it makes really fucking good coffee. He goes through his routine, cleaning, disinfecting, running the autoclave, checking his calendar to see what appointments he had that day, the usual. Charlie stumbles in right as they’re supposed to open, looking like she’d gotten maybe ten minutes of sleep.

“Damn, rough night?”

“Ugh don’t yell, Dean,” she clutches her head, pulling off her jacket and sticking it in the closet.

“You do know that it’s a Tuesday morning right? How did you find a party to go to on a Monday night?”

“I don’t know, Claire invited me. it was in the nice part of Soho at some rooftop bar.”

“All of Soho is nice,” Dean says, reclining in a chair and swigging his coffee out of Benny’s #1 dad mug.

“That’s true,” Charlie says, setting up her station and running the usual disinfecting routine. Dean knew she had an appointment at 10 this morning, or he would’ve definitely gotten a text along the lines of _“My hangover is crippling, I’ll be in in a couple of hours.”_

“How was that art thing with Sam?” she asks as she pours a cup of coffee into her _Star Wars_ mug and downs it in one.

“Horrifically boring, as you’d guess,” Dean shuffles his sketches for his new client into a semi-organized stack of chaos. It’s actually a pretty cool piece, and Dean is excited to show it to the guy, who had wanted something on his chest, not a full chest piece, but a standalone piece, and Dean had come up with this really cool pair of hands holding a beating heart. He was thinking of having some blood dripping down onto the guy’s ribs a little, if he was into it. He’d seemed pretty cool when he booked the appointment, not too demanding and pretty open to Dean being creative, which was his favorite thing.

“Any hot guys?” Charlie’s wiping down her chair, obviously trying not to inhale the chemicals of the Clorox wipe. Dean snorts.

“Like you care.”

“I definitely don’t but you do, and I was saving asking about hot girls for a second since that’s the type we’re both into.”

“Not really, they were all about ten thousand years old,” Dean pauses, but if he couldn’t tell Charlie, who could he tell?, “There was this guy, though-”

Charlie scoffs.

“He was the art dealer, curator, whatever of the gallery.”

“Oooo, fishing for rich guys, huh Dean?”

“Yeah yeah whatever.”

“You get his number?”

“Nah,” he laughs at Charlie’s shocked face, “Don’t look so surprised, I was there for Sam, not to get laid.

Charlie fully stops drinking her coffee and stares at him.

“Since when have you ever, and I do mean ever, not made a move on someone because you though it would embarrass Sam?”

“This was different though, like this is his actual career and I didn’t want to, you know, ruin it.”

Charlie keeps staring at him.

“What?”

“I have to say, I’m touched.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Oh shut up.”

Before Charlie can retort, her client walks in, and she has to put on the ‘I don’t have a crippling hangover and am ready to start working’ face for the girl, who’s getting an artsy sort of _Lord of the Rings_ thing on her arm. She looks a little nervous but Charlie is all bubbly charm, hiding her hangover flawlessly and hiding the dark circles under her eyes with smiles and laughter and nerdy jokes that are enough to put even the flightiest client at ease.

Dean tunes out the chatter and swipes through Instagram for a while, waiting for his client to show up, letting himself wake up, so the burning itch of being awake after too little sleep leaves him as the caffeine works its way through his veins.

Dean’s client, a guy named Clint, ends up being a little early too, and when he shows the sketches to him and pitches his idea of the blood trickling down his chest towards his ribs, he’s so over the moon that Dean books him for a half day session the next week on the spot. He talks to Clint for a while, feeling him out, trying to figure out how he’ll be on the day. Look, you gotta sometimes know in advance, especially on a lower down chest piece, it’s a bad spot, and if it’s his first tattoo, Dean’s bedside manner is gonna have to be amazing. But Clint’s a cool guy, he has tattoos and tells Dean he’d been recommended to him by some friends in the community, which Dean is completely thrilled over, nothing quite like getting positive reviews from other artists. They shoot the shit for twenty minutes after their consult is supposed to have ended, and Dean’s got half a mind to just put him in the chair and do the piece right then, but he does have another appointment in a few hours and that’s what consultations are for anyway, so he shakes Clint’s hand and slaps him on the back, sending him an email with the details about his appointment after he leaves.

Charlie is still working on her client, Pamela’s not due in for a couple of hours, and it’s Benny’s day off, so Dean finds himself in the sketching room, working at the angled desk, getting up only to change the playlist to classic rock from Charlie’s pop hits. And since she’s tattooing she can’t do anything more than give him an ‘I’ll kill you later’ look. Score.

If you had asked him, six years ago, when he had finished his apprenticeship in Chicago and moved to New York, that he would own his own shop by the time he was twenty-nine, and a successful one at that, he would have laughed. But, what could he say, things had just kind of worked out. He had gotten hired at _Kashmir_, then called _Roadhouse Ink_, after only a couple of weeks of searching around, (mostly thanks to Bobby calling in a few favors from Chicago). Dean and Ellen had hit it off pretty much immediately. She had taken him in, helped him hone his own style, had given him a part in their little shop community, and, two years ago, when she had decided that she wanted to move to Seattle to be closer to Jo, who had moved eight months before to work in tech, she had given him the chance to buy first. It had taken him a little while to get used to being the _owner_ instead of a worker, but it wasn’t like he was alone. He, Benny, Pamela, and Charlie, they really all owned it together, which he had told them more than once, it was just his name on the papers. And hell, they were popular. The place was successful, they each drew different types of clients with their distinct styles; Charlie with her nerdy realistic tattoos, bright and colorful and fun, Pamela with her affinity for floral pieces so lifelike that they looked real, and Benny with script so delicate that people from around the world came to see him for it. And then Dean, with his line work and his tiny details, the shop was always busy, and there were times that they had to stop taking walk ins at all. Dean was lucky to have his life, really beyond lucky, and he loved his shop so much he could hardly stand it sometimes.

Charlie wraps up with her client right as Pamela comes in for the day. She slaps Dean on the back when he looks up from his sketch.

“Oh that’s nice, that’d make a good chest piece,” she says, resting her chin on Dean’s shoulder.

It would, Dean thinks, he kinda wants it for himself honestly, the battle scene reminds him of something, but he’s not sure what. It’s a little more abstract than what he usually goes for, but hey, it’ll at least make a nice portfolio piece.

“What’ve you got going today?” Dean asks Pamela, his stomach already grumbling, he was definitely going to pick up lunch, his next client wasn’t coming in until two anyway.

“Couple consultations, a regular coming in for a second session, that orchid piece, you remember? Pretty quiet day.”

“Cool, so what do you want for lunch?”

“You’re so transparent-” Pamela begins, before Charlie yells from across the room,

“Shake Shack!”

“Oh _hell_ yes,” Dean exclaims enthusiastically, already jumping up and grabbing his wallet, “What do y’all want?”

“You’re buying?” Pamela asks, “Then I’ll have one of everything.”

“Great, good thing Shake Shack only has like six things. For real, the usual?”

“Yes, add cheese this time.”

“Bold today. I still can’t believe you get your burger with a mushroom instead of an actual burger. What about you, Charlie?”

“Just fuck me up.”

“I gotcha.”

It’s a nice day outside, sunny and cool, but Dean can’t actually wait for it to really turn into fall, which was his favorite time to live in New York. The streets are pretty quiet, mostly people with young children and a couple of businesspeople out for lunch. It doesn’t take him long to get to Shake Shack, and even though he has to wait in the usual insane line, so he gets back right when his client walks in, so he tosses his lunch into the sketching room and washes his hands to start work. He gets lost in the music that’s playing over the speakers, even though it’s indie electronic pop that Pamela can’t seem to get enough of, he gets list in the tiny fine lines of the piece. It’s delicate work, more delicate than people give it credit for, and even though it makes Dean’s hands cramp and makes his back ache when he’s hunched over in a weird position for too long, the idea that he’s creating art that will be on someone forever is scary and exhilarating at the same time. He likes this particular piece a lot, the anatomical replica of a person’s hand, the skeleton of them anyway, holding a wilting red rose.

It takes a good couple of hours to finish up with the line work, and Dean ends up really getting to know the guy, Christian. He’s just graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in history, and was living in Queens with his girlfriend and their dog. Dean likes to think that he has a pretty great bedside manner when it came to his clients. He liked hearing about their lives, why they were getting a piece done, if they had a reason for getting one. Usually, if he got them to talk about themselves, their lives, their kids, their pets, whatever, it would kind of distract from the pain that what he was doing caused. He loves tattoos, he loves getting and giving them, but he hates, absolutely hates that he’s what causes people pain. So, he had developed this way of distracting people, of making them comfortable in a way that Charlie was actively jealous of.

He finishes up with Christian after about four hours, and he’s so excited about the finished product that he swears he’ll be back in a few weeks to talk about another piece. Dean’s excited too, it’s always so nice when someone loves the work so much that they want to come back right away. It looks good on him too, so Dean snaps a picture so he can put it on his Instagram, maybe throw it up on the website if the mood strikes him right.

When Christian pays and leaves, Dean finally gets to at his lunch, chatting with Charlie while Pamela’s in a consultation.

“Okay so you gotta tell me about this guy,” Charlie says, stretching out in her chair while Dean tears into his double cheeseburger and cheese fries (you could never have enough dairy).

“There’s nothing to tell, Charlie, he was hot and charming as hell but, I don’t know, a little out of my league I guess.”

“Okay first, no one is out of your league.”

Dean scoffs, but Charlie continues.

“And second, if you know where hot art guy works, and Sam impressing stuck up lawyers isn’t an issue anymore so…”

“How do you know the lawyers are stuck up?”

“Because all lawyers are stuck up, and you’re avoiding the issue.”

“C’mon Charlie,” Dean looks over at her, she’s not gonna let this go, “I just…I don’t know, he’s a little too Upper East Side for my Brooklyn ass.”

“What is this, _Sex and the City_?”

“That’s a good show,” Dean tries to interject, but Charlie continues,

“I know it’s a good show, Dean, but what’s the-”

“What are you talking about?” Pamela says, having just finished her consultation. She plops down in the chair next to Dean and puts her feet on the tattoo table, she cuts Dean off before he can say anything,

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll sterilize before I leave, don’t bitch at me. So, what’re you talking about?”

“Dean’s being a baby about a hot guy,” Charlie says, dodging the balled-up napkin that Dean throws at her.

“He wasn’t even that hot,” Dean lies, knowing that they could see right through him. He does his best not to think about just how hot Castiel actually was. He definitely avoids thinking about his decidedly elegant hands and how broad his shoulders were and the way his eyes glinted when they looked at Dean.

“Yeah, okay,” Charlie rolls her eyes and Pamela laughs.

The rest of the day is mostly quiet, but they get a couple of walk ins and book a few more appointments. Some dude stumbles in for a consultation with Dean who is so hammered that Dean’s surprised he can even see straight, and they have to escort him out, hearing drunken promises that he’ll be back when he’s sober and “ready to go.” By the time it hits eight o’clock, Dean convinces Pamela to do a little piece on his left arm, because he was itching for ink and that was one of the benefits to working in a tattoo studio with some of your best friends. He decides on a delicate blue rose, for a couple of reasons. One, because he loves roses, proven by his neck piece that nearly reaches his jawline, a classic old school piece, red and green and dark black lines, done by Lee in Chicago several years before. And two, because he had a little bit of an obsession with Tennessee Williams’ _The Glass Menagerie_, and Jim calls Laura “blue roses.” He adores Pamela’s work, and she seems to know what he’ll want before he does, because when she sketches it up, it’s more perfect than what Dean’s mind could have ever dreamed up, and is just the right shade of blue.

Charlie watches as Pamela and Dean set to work, listening to Pamela’s playlist because tattooer picks the music, tattooee shuts their cakehole.

People ask him all the time, before they get their first tattoo, what it actually feels like, and the best Dean can compare is like a hot mechanical pencil running down your skin. He doesn’t mind it, especially with Charlie chattering next to him, careful not to make him laugh, and Pamela’s steady hands on his arm, he feels at peace, which isn’t something most people probably think when a needle is jamming ink into their skin, but he’s a freak, he accepted that a long time ago.

It doesn’t take Pamela long, maybe 45 minutes, and when she gently cleans him up, he’s left with a two and a half inch perfect blue rose, a blue that’s vibrant and peaceful and reminds Dean of something that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s incredible, and he tells Pamela as much, and she gives him a hug that he leans into more than usual.

\-------------------

A few days after the art gallery opening, Sam gets called in for another interview. He’s so nervous that Dean thinks he’s going to tear his hair out as he stands in the shop, looking in the mirrors and smoothing it down, trying to straighten his tie and making it even more crooked than usual. Benny and Pamela, the mom and dad of the place, converge on him, Pamela uses a comb she whips out of her bag to smooth his hair, and Benny fixes his tie. Sam’s talking a mile a minute, almost too fast to understand,

“I just really think I have a good shot at this, you know. I really think they liked me at that art gallery thing, and they’re really my favorite one I’ve interviewed at by they’re way out of my league, like one of the most respectable firms in the city and I just don’t know that I have what it takes, you know I just moved here and just graduated and-”

“Sammy, breathe,” Dean grabs his shoulders, careful not to wrinkle his suit, which he had ironed himself that morning, “You’re gonna be fine, they’ll be lucky to have you.”

He can practically see Sam’s heart beating out of his chest. Charlie steps up next, giving Sam a gentle hug and pushing something into his hand. It’s a lego minifigure of Aragorn, Sam’s favorite _Lord of the Rings_ character. Dean sees some of the tension visibly bleed from Sam’s shoulders. Damn, Charlie’s good.

They walk him to the door, and Sam seems more relaxed now, a little more like himself. Before he leaves, Dean gives him a long hug.

“You’re gonna do great.”

Sam gives him a nervous smile.

“I hope so.”

They all watch him walk up the block towards the train station, Pamela twisting her hands together.

“He’ll be fine,” Benny says, putting his arm around her.

“I know, I hate to see him worried though.”

“Ditto,” Dean huffs, letting out a sigh as he turns back to the inside of the shop.

“This feels like the day I dropped Celeste off at the first day of preschool,” Benny says, chuckling, still looking down the street after Sam.

They don’t get much work done that day, all nervous for Sam. They huddle around Dean’s phone when he gets the “Here” text from Sam, and then start discussing how long the process would take, when they should expect to hear from him.

“It’s gotta be at least two hours,” says Dean to Charlie, sketching absentmindedly after she finished up with a client.

“Yeah, I’ve heard those interviews can take a while, he’ll probably meet with a partner and then a recruiter right?”

“I have no fucking clue,” Dean stands up and starts pacing, full of nervous energy.

“You’re as bad as he is,” Pamela says, watching Dean pace, “Can you cut it out? You’re making me nervous.”

“You need to take it easy, brother,” Benny tries to soothe Dean by putting a heavy hand on his shoulder, “He’s gonna be fine.”

“Okay, everyone needs to tell me their weekend plans, I need to distract myself or I’m going to die.”

“Did you hear me tell Pam that Celeste got picked for the soccer team at school?”

That’s definitely enough to peak Dean’s interest, anything to do with Benny’s kid and he’s all ears. She has him wrapped around her fingers and that’s never going to change. So Dean sits across from Benny all heart eyes and soft smiles as he shows him pictures Andrea took of her first practice, holding Benny’s phone with reverence as he watches the video of her accidentally kicking another girl in the face. 

“She’s the next Pele,” Dean smiles fondly as he hands the phone back to Benny.

“Ah whatever, as long as she’s having a good time I’m all for it, but I will probably end up fighting a parent or two, they’re already vicious about the team being ‘good’ and it’s like…they’re four.”

Dean laughs, head thrown back as he heads to the sketching room, adding a few details onto that weird modern-y chest piece that he likes so much. He tries not to check the clock too much, but ends up cricking his neck as he twists and twists again, the hands around the numbers moving glacially, like time’s not actually passing and the world is playing a joke on him so he can keep being overly anxious about Sam.

Sam comes back later that evening, with just about as much nervous energy as when he left. The shop is busy, all of them are either tattooing or in consultations, so Sam sits on the couch in the front, his leg bouncing so much that it looks like he’s going to jackhammer it into the floor. Dean breaks away from his consult for a minute to check in with him, or else he thinks Sam might actually explode.

“How’d it-”

“Really good, I think it went well. I met with the recruiter there and the HR representative and then one of the partners for an hour. They said they’d be in touch. What do you think that means?”

“It probably means they’ll be in touch,” Dean grins a little as Sam rolls his eyes, leg still bouncing incessantly, heel of his polished shoe clacking loudly on the linoleum floor.

“Yeah but they say that to everyone. It’s a job interview. I don’t know, how do I tell if they liked me.”

“You got called in for a second interview, that probably means that they liked you.”

Sam twists his hands fretfully. He looks so small even though he’s four, (five) inches taller than Dean, much to Dean’s everlasting frustration when people think that Sam is the older brother.

“Yeah, I guess. I just really really want to work for them.”

“It’s gonna be okay, Sammy, you’ll get the right job. You cool to wait here while I finish up?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, stop bouncing your leg, you’re gonna scare off my clients.”

Sam makes an effort to stop bouncing his leg. It lasts about three seconds.

“Sorry sorry, it’s just the adrenaline I guess. That was the most stressful two and a half hours of my life.”

“I get it. We’re done in a while anyway, we can go grab dinner at that sushi place if you want.”

Sam stares at him.

“I really must look pathetic.”

“What do you mean?”

“You hate that sushi place. Like, hate hate it. If you’re suggesting we go there for dinner I must look really pathetic.”

Dean rolls his eyes, mostly because he was being called out.

“I mean if you don’t want to-”

“No no, I do,” Sam says, “We can get that sashimi that’s so good.”

Dean fake gags and walks back over to the guy he’s consulting with. He doesn’t hate sushi, but it does mean that he’s going to be hungry in like three hours after they eat, no matter how much he orders.

The rest of the night passes in a blur, they get a couple of walk ins for little pieces, one of which Dean takes. It’s the girl’s first tattoo and she’s decided on a little cat on her upper arm. He likes tattooing animals, and they can’t take a lot of walk ins anymore, so it was a nice change of pace to do something that he hadn’t spent at least ten hours staring at while he was sketching and stenciling. By the time he finishes with her and cleans up his station, it’s past closing and Charlie, Pamela, and Benny are sitting around Sam, listening to him chatter about the interview. 

The office was on Madison Avenue, in a fancy high rise, and apparently it took like three steps of security to actually get into the building. He had waited in the conference room for exactly 13 minutes (he had timed it, the freak that he was), before the HR rep and the recruiter had come in to talk to him. The other three were hyping Sam up, saying that all that was a great sign and that he had been seen so quickly, that the interviews had taken so long, that they were sure to love him, that anyone would be lucky to have him. Sam drinks it up, not normally one to accept praise in any form (Dean thought he was going to vanish into think air when one of his law professors had commended him in front of Dean after graduation), but he seems to be breathing easier as they, their little family, helps talk him down, telling him how lucky this place would be to get someone like him.

Dean, Charlie, Sam, and Pamela head to the sushi place, bidding Benny goodbye to go home to his wife and soccer star, promising to bring more pictures in the morning, and Sam keeps talking a mile a minute, talking about the cases this firm had taken, the pros and cons of criminal defense versus prosecution, and Dean tries his best to take it all in. The sushi place isn’t all that bad, and even though Dean stares a little too long at a guy with messy dark hair a few tables from him, so that Charlie asks him who he’s staring at, which he (not so) masterfully dodges. Dinner is quiet and just what Sam needs after a day like today.

“So,” Charlie grins at him as Sam and Pamela are chattering ahead of them, heading back to their apartment for a nightcap, “What really went on with hot art dealer man the other day?”

Dean knew he wasn’t going to get away that easily, he never could when it came to Charlie.

“Nothing happened. He was hot, funny, charming. We flirted a little, that’s it.”

Charlie just watches him, her face betraying a little of the humor she was trying to hide.

“What?”

“And you seriously didn’t get his number?”

“No! I already told you, I was there for Sam.”

Charlie sighs, watching her breath fog in front of her.

“Sam’s not the only one that needs to get a grip. You clearly liked this dude. Go find him.”

“This isn’t a rom com, C. He was cute, we flirted, that was the end of it. Plus that was like a week ago, if I go in there now I’ll seem like a stalker.”

“No you wouldn’t, just like, pretend you’re into modern art or something.”

“You see they sold that banana covered in duct tape for 120k?”

That gets Charlie going, and she, mercifully, doesn’t bring up Castiel again, because Dean’s dreams had been plagued with that weird painting, and he swore sometimes, right when he woke up, he would turn back and see dark hair and blue eyes, but that is not something he would ever admit to. Ever. Because if he started having dreams about every hot person he met in New York City, he’d be sleeping for the rest of his life. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! No Cas this chapter and I'm sorry, but he's back next chapter! What can I say, love my found family trope.  
Thank you guys so much for reading, I really appreciate you guys so much and would love to know what you think! <3  
You can find me on tumblr at heliodean!


	3. Trace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Touch has a memory.” – John Keats

Sam gets the job at that law firm, the one from the art gallery. He calls Dean at the shop on Halloween and after they all get on the phone to congratulate them, Charlie calls for a celebration at some bar in Willamsburg that’s throwing the “best Halloween party in the city.”

Dean immediately tries to weasel out of it, saying that Sam would probably just want to hang at home and relax after his acceptance interview (law was weird). He doesn’t want to try to fight the crazy Halloween crowds, especially since the subway would be a literal nightmare and they all had work in the morning. He would much prefer to spend Halloween handing out candy, eating way too much of it, and watching terrible Halloween movies.

“You know you have to go out sometimes,” Charlies rolls her eyes, “Plus we’re closing early today anyway so it’s not like we’ll be going out that late.”

“I go out.”

“Yeah, when I drag you out, you’re a homebody.”

“Am not!” Dean exclaims, knowing that she’s right, “I just don’t wanna go out on Halloween.”

“It’ll be so fun, everyone’s gonna be dressed up and everything and-”

“I’m not going to a Halloween party, Charlie,” Dean says, wiping down the front counter, still grinning about Sam’s news.

“You could come trick or treating with me and Celeste,” Benny leans on the just-cleaned counter. Dean smacks him with the washcloth.

“I’d rather hang with you and Celeste than go out to a bar with a bunch of Brooklyn hipsters who can’t handle their liquor.”

“You’re welcome to come, but Celeste would make you wear a princess outfit.”

“Sounds great to me, you know I’d do anything for her. Anyway, I _am_ a princess.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” snarks Pamela, flopping down on the couch by the front door. Charlie sits down next to her, giving Dean the puppy dog eyes she knows that he can’t resist.

“Alternatively, you could come to this sick party with me and not spend the night watching _Hocus Pocus_ and eating takeout.”

“_Hocus Pocus_ is a classic in Halloween cinema so-”

“Sam already said he’ll be there so now you have to go.”

Dean narrows his eyes at her.

“Like hell he did.”

“Yes he did, he said he wanted to celebrate,” Charlie stomps over to him and shows him the text “Can’t wait!” with a smiley emoticon and everything. Damn.

Dean sighs, Pamela gets up to pat him on the shoulder while Charlie looks as smug as he’s ever seen her.

“Probably just smarter to give in, man,” Benny’s clearly trying to not laugh, damn him.

“Fine, but I get to pick my costume.”

“Oh, so you won’t be wearing the lingerie bunny corset costume I got you?” Pamela smirks, and all three of them start laughing.

“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up.”

“It’s fun to make fun of you, honey,” Pamela pats him on the shoulder, “You turn red and get all worked up, you know we don’t mean anything by it.”

“Yeah yeah I know.”

“I’ll come over to yours so we can get ready,” says Charlie, her face literally already glowing with mischief which means she and Dean are gonna get fucked up tonight, “And don’t bring the Impala, we’re gonna get wasted.”

“I’m not driving her to Willamsburg on Halloween anyway.”

“Why isn’t Pamela getting roped into this?”

“I’m seeing that guy Link again.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Ugh, that guy has a douchebag name.”

“You’ve never even met him,” Pamela starts, but Benny interrupts her,

“He’s right, Pam, it is a douchebag name.”

“Whatever. He’s cute and fun and it’s not like I’m gonna marry him. We’re going to some Halloween parade in Harlem I think. Anyway Benny, no one’s having a night as exciting as you.”

Benny smiles, he thinks Celeste hung the moon, and it’s actually pretty adorable.

“I think so, I’ll send y’all a picture of her in her costume. Me and Andrea made it ourselves.”

Benny shows them his fingers, which look like he had gone searching for a needle in a stack of needles. They’re covered in flowery pink band aids.

“She decided she wanted to patch me up, it’s not like I can ever say no to her.”

“Those band aids are dope though,” Charlie examines his hands, “Bet it sucked to have them in gloves all day though.

“Oh it did, they burn like a bitch with the latex, but whatever, she’s worth it.”

“Ugh I’m so excited! Dean, I’ll see you at yours in like an hour, I gotta go pick up my shit.”

Charlie heads out the door, Pamela following with a wave. Dean stares at Benny, hoping he can rescue him.

“Any chance you can say Celeste kidnapped me and made me dress up to go trick or treating?”

Benny laughs, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Come on, man, you’ll have a good time, you love Halloween.”

Dean groans, throwing up his hands.

“And anyway,” Benny continues, picking up his bag, “Someone’s gotta keep Sam entertained for the night, and god knows you and Charlie are going to try and drink each other under the table.”

“Wish you could come man, it’s always more fun with you around.”

Benny smiles, and Dean knows that as much as he misses Benny coming around and being the life of the party, that Benny was living the kind of life he used to only be able to dream of. Andrea and Celeste? They were no contest to those two, and they shouldn’t be. 

“They’re more important.”

“I know they are.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That ain’t a long list.”

Laughing, Benny picks up his bag and heads for the door.

“Don’t forget that picture,” Dean calls after him, earning him a thumbs up from Benny as the door swings shut. Dean spends the next half an hour cleaning up the shop, the nightly ritual completed a little early, until he starts getting incessant texts from Charlie, all threatening to tear up his comic collection if he didn’t get his ass home. He sighs, resigning himself to a horrible hangover in the morning and starts the really unbelievably beautiful walk back towards the apartment. He loves New York in the fall, the beautiful leaves, the breezy weather, it was the perfect time to live here. He hums as he heads up their block, the orange and black decorations adorning the entrances, little kids already running around in costumes. This was nice, like actually kinda perfect.

Entering the apartment is like walking into the middle of where a tornado had just touched down. Charlie’s costume lay in the middle of their living room floor, and she’s clearly trying to decide exactly what pieces would work best for their party. Sam is already clearly ready to go, but bounces up as soon as Dean comes in and grabs him in a bear hug.

“Congrats Sammy, knew you’d get it.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m really happy.”

“And you start-?”

“Next Monday, they’re starting me as a clerk until I pass the bar, so just one more big test and then they said that I can start working my own cases.”

“That’s great, but more studying? Damn dude, you really gotta learn to stop learning.”

Sam rolls his eyes, clearly still floating on air. But before he can retort, Charlie bursts into the room, clearly the root cause of the storm in their house. She’s half dressed and near hysterics already and they haven’t even started drinking yet.

“Okay can one of you help me with my zipper? I just put it in last night and now it’s not zipping even though I literally tested it like fifty times and I know I didn’t do it wrong but-”

“Okay,” Dean says, taking a step forward, “let’s take a look.”

It takes all three of them to get the zipper to actually zip, but they do and Charlie immediately pushes Dean to his room, saying,

“If you come out in a stupid costume I’m going to kick your ass.”

So here he stands, in front of his closet, looking for…something that would make him look totally cool and wasn’t something that was going to make him wish that he was dead in a couple of hours when they had to wait half an hour for the train.

Oh fucking perfect.

Dean may hate Halloween parties, but if he had to go to one, he was _absolutely_ going to dress up like a cowboy. He looks in the mirror of his bedroom a few minutes later, fully decked out in his costume, which looks pretty amazing considering he hadn’t known he was going to a costume party that morning.

“You just had that in your closet?” Sam asks, sprawled out next to Charlie on the couch and laughing at Dean when he makes his appearance.

“Yeah, so?”

“Dean, who just has a vintage cowboy costume that they can pull out on a whim?”

Dean shifts his weight as he rolls up his sleeves. He’ll be a badass tattooed cowboy.

“Me I guess.”

Sam continues to snicker as Charlie stands and stretches and goes to the mirror they have leaning against the wall by the door. Sometimes Dean needs to check how he looks before he leaves, so sue him.

Dean’s gotta say, Charlie’s all out Arwen costume was pretty sick, even though she had taken over their floor for two months making it because the studio she was renting in Vinegar Hill was about the size of a matchbox and she needed the floor space to sew and watch _Return of the King _on repeat for “research.”

“I’m ready when you guys are.”

Dean tips his hat as Sam stick on bunny ears (lame), and Charlie drags them towards the train station where they head towards Williamsburg (had to take the M line instead of the G because, once again, the MTA is the worst), and end up in front if this way too trendy bar that was all decked out in orange and black string lights. The music is so loud it makes the windows shake, but Charlie has a vice grip on Dean’s hand so he doesn’t have a chance to balk and then they were right in the thick of the crowd, pushing through to get to the bar. 

Dean gets them all drinks from the pretty bartender, a whiskey for himself, a whiskey sour for Charlie, and a beer for Sam, predictably, Charlie is chatting up a pretty girl in a _Star Trek_ costume in about fifteen seconds, and before Dean can even turn around, Sam has disappeared to talk to a pretty brunette himself, so Dean is left at the bar, nursing his whiskey and feeling a little bit wounded that he wasn’t flirting with someone yet. He looks around, trying to find someone to catch his interest.

Oh fuck.

Nah, it’s not.

God.

Yeah, it is.

Castiel. Fucking gorgeous art dealer Castiel. Art dealer Castiel who Dean has repeatedly dreamt about because his brain is fucked up and he can’t be normal for ten seconds. Dressed as a doctor in scrubs and everything because the powers that be just know that Dean has a thing for guys in scrubs and he’s being punished for something.

Okay. How does he not get spotted? Listen, he’s not a coward or anything, but Castiel was one of those entities that was just a little too handsome and a little too rich and a little too out of his league.

“Dean?”

Dammit.

Dean turns to see those blue eyes like two inches from his own.

He’s so screwed.

“Hey, uh, hi.”

“You do remember me?”

Uh yeah he does. How the fuck is he supposed to forget…anyway.

“Yeah, I do, yeah.”

“Oh good, I was hoping I made some sort of impression on you.”

Dean chooses to ignore that, because he was not about to admit that he had thought about Castiel more than anyone should think about someone they met for ten minutes at an art gallery opening.

“What brings you to Brooklyn, then? No Halloween-themed galas you can go to?”

Castiel laughs and Dean should not have missed that sound but he does because he’s an absolute freak.

“No, I think most of my usual clients are in their fancy townhouses handing out candy, and though you might not think it, I, like most people, enjoy Brooklyn and am here with a few friends, but,” he says, looking around in the milling crowd, “It seems like they may have ditched me and gone to the club down the block.”

“Wow, so you’re flying solo tonight.”

Castiel smiles.

“It appears that way.”

Dean really wished that Castiel knew what personal space was, because him standing like two centimeters from him was distracting and Dean had the almost overwhelming impulse to run his hands through his already messy hair. He found himself wondering if it was as soft as it looked.

“Yeah well, I hate Halloween parties myself,” Dean is trying to ignore his impulses and remind himself that Castiel was a very bad idea wrapped up in dream packaging.

Castiel doesn’t seem to notice that Dean is sweating actual bullets, he just leans closer so Dean can hear him over the thrum of the music in the bar, pounding like Dean’s own erratic heart.

“Well, for someone that hates Halloween parties, you sure do have a nice costume.”

Thank Christ for bars having nothing but low lighting, because Dean’s pretty sure he’s as red as a tomato, but he can’t pull away, not wanting to put even an inch of distance between him and Castiel.

“Yeah well, I missed my calling. Shoulda been a frontier cowboy for sure,” he gestures to Castiel’s own costume, “You look great, were you a doctor in a former life?”

“No, but I did steal this for the night from one of my brothers, he’s an ER nurse at Mount Sinai,” Castiel pauses, steeling himself for something, “Can I get you a drink?”

“Excuse me?” Dean says, caught off guard. He’s usually the one that’s buying the drinks, not the other way around.

“I’m trying to buy you a drink,” Castiel’s eyes are clear, honest, he’s serious, and Dean seriously wants to take him up on it. He hesitates. What the hell?

“Whiskey, straight, then.”

“I hope not.”

Dean chokes on air, it was quiet enough that he _could _have imagined Castiel saying that, he _could _have said something different, meant it in a different way, but holy _fuck_ did he hope that he had heard Castiel correctly.

Castiel gets him his drink, and gets himself one as well (vodka cranberry, which isn’t as respectable as his whiskey, but it’s better than gin and tonic, which, in Dean’s superior opinion, tastes like antifreeze). And leans with his back against the bar, taking a long, slow look up and down Dean’s body. Probably just looking at his costume, right?

“Who are you here with?”

Dean finds he’s having a hard time talking when Castiel looks at him like that because, listen he doesn’t want to get embarrassed in this bar because the lighting’s low but it’s not that low, you know?

“Oh uh, my brother and my friend Charlie. Her idea actually. My brother actually got that job he was interviewing, or, uh, preinterviewing for at your gallery, so I guess I’m not the only one moonlighting as a good luck charm,” Dean gives Castiel that smile. The smile that can win him great customer service anywhere he goes (yeah, even the DMV) and has gotten him into bed with pretty much everyone that he’s ever wanted. Not that he was- Anyway.

“Well I’m glad to hear that,” Castiel says, smiling back and grazing his teeth against his bottom lip and he’s gotta somehow subconsciously know that that drives Dean crazy, “And so you’re out celebrating?”

“Yeah, celebrating for sure. Mostly Charlie and I came to get fucked up, but she ditched me for the first girl she could find so I guess I’m on my own.”

“Well then maybe you and I can stick together, since we’ve both been abandoned by our respective groups.”

Dean lifts his glass.

“Sounds good to me.”

He and Castiel proceed to get pretty spectacularly drunk. Castiel is one of the few people on earth that seems to be able to drink Dean under a table, and they find a place to sit, facing each other while the bar moves around them, like lines of traffic circling around construction. Dean learns Castiel has four brothers and one sister. All of them are named after angels, his parents were history professors and had a thing for the names. Castiel was the third youngest, only older than his sister, Anael, and his youngest brother, Samandriel. His older brother Gadreel was the ER nurse at Mount Sinai, and he had family dinners with his siblings at least once a month. The two oldest brothers, Gabriel and Balthazar were in the entertainment business, Gabriel was in casting and Balthazar worked in live theater. Anael, or Anna, was a very successful writer that wrote horror novels under a pseudonym, and Samandriel was a chef in an upscale restaurant. They lamented the pranks they wish they could have pulled on their younger siblings together, and Dean definitely did not notice the way Castiel’s eyes crinkled when he laughed too hard.

Dean finds it easy to talk to Castiel. He tells him about Sam going to college, about the shop, his friends there, the community he built, his hatred of the MTA. They laugh together when Dean tells Castiel a story from his apprenticeship, where his buddy Ash had convinced another guy in the shop, another apprentice named Kevin, to let Ash blind tattoo him, which meant that he got stuck with a huge Hash Slinging Slasher tattoo from Spongebob Squarepants on his ass. Castiel laughs that full throated laugh that Dean swears could make the sun rise on a whim and makes his toes curl with sheer pleasure. He even shows Castiel the picture Benny texts him: Benny, Andrea, and Celeste all together, Celeste dressed as a fairy princess, Andrea as a dragon, and Benny dressed as a big grey castle.

“This is your friend?” Castiel asks, with this big dopey smile on his face that Dean thinks might be getting him drunker by the second.

“Yeah, and his wife Andrea and daughter Celeste. She’s my goddaughter,” he adds proudly. It’s pretty much his greatest achievement.

Castiel looks at him with bright eyes and that damn smile. That goddamn smile.

Dean laughs way too hard when he sees Sam out on the dance floor with the pretty brunette in the Black Widow costume, and Charlie is still trying to charm the pants off of the girl in the _Star Trek_ outfit, so he turns back to Cas, who’s leaning across the table, still in Dean’s space, and he realizes Castiel is tracing the lines of the twisting highway, leading up to snowcapped mountains on his right forearm. Dean would normally turn and run in the other direction at this, it was too intimate and just way too _close_, but he’s drunk and Castiel is so pretty and so he lets his fingertips leave burn marks on his skin, like he was retracing the ink.

“Tell me about this,” Castiel says, his eyes following his feather-light fingers.

“About what? The tattoo?”

“Yes,” Castiel whispers, but Dean is in tune with him, he can hear him even over the music and the chattering of the still-crowded bar.

“I uh,” Dean doesn’t know whether to tell the truth or not, but he decides on most of it, “we, me and Sam, traveled around a lot when we were kids, it’s kind of a homage to that. And I love the mountains so.”

“And now you live in the city with buildings like mountains.”

“Yeah,” Dean smiles, “Guess that’s why they call them skyscrapers.”

Castiel has that twinkle in his eye and Dean is too drunk for this. He wants to take Castiel home and fuck him ten ways from Sunday. Oh god this was bad. Dean was too drunk for this, he was too drunk not to do something stupid that he might regret in the morning. Plus his friends were here, _Sam_ was here, and he wasn’t sure if he was that comfortable with jumping Castiel’s bones in a crowded bar where his little brother could most definitely see him. But something was pulling him closer, and he was leaning towards Castiel, getting into his space, so their faces were centimeters apart. He could smell the vodka and cranberry on his breath, feel the heat of him, oh god this was so bad this was so so so-

“Dean!”

Charlie collides with him, and Dean and Castiel are pulled out of their little moment. Charlie and Sam are both swaying in front of him, or maybe he’s just that drunk, he can’t tell.

“Let’s go, Sam wants to order pizza and that girl I was talking to left.”

Dean feels Castiel’s eyes on him, but maybe this was a sign, getting pulled away right before he was about to do something he couldn’t undo. So, like the coward he probably is, he pulls away from Castiel, and stands, wobbling to face Charlie and Sam.

“Yeah, we can order when we get home.”

Sam and Charlie head for the door, and Dean goes to pay his tab, but before he leaves, he goes back to Castiel.

“Listen, I-”

“I understand,” Castiel smiles, one of his hands wrapping around Dean’s forearm, almost unconsciously, “I should go find my friends as well, they’ve been texting me for the past hour.”

Dean blushes.

“Oh well uh, yeah I guess I’ll see you around then.”

“I hope so,” and Dean felt his fingertips feel really warm at his words.

He doesn’t say anything, since it feels like his heart is gonna literally fall out of his mouth if he opens it, so he settles on smiling in what he hopes is a flirty and charming way, but he’s so drunk he’s not sure it works. Castiel doesn’t seem to mind, he drags his fingers across Dean’s chest and then heads into the crowd, leaving Dean’s heart rattling, and him struggling to find breath, even though he’s been sitting for the last two hours.

The night air is soothing on his face, and he sticks his hands in his pockets as he, Charlie, and Sam weave their way down the pavement. Charlie is the most drunk and Dean’s not far behind her, so it’s mostly on Sam to get them home. Predictably, they have to wait for the train for like 45 minutes, where Charlie and Dean get into an off-key singing contest, making the few non-drunk people on the platform move all the way to the end to try and escape the noise.

They stumble into Sam and Dean’s apartment, and Dean collapses, giggling onto the couch, kicking off his cowboy boots and tossing his hat into a corner, while Charlie goes into the bathroom to change and Sam picks up the phone to order pizza. Dean lays in his comfortable, warm haze, his brain wandering towards the table at the bar, Castiel’s long, slow touches on his skin, tracing the black lines of his tattoos, the way his touch heated his already flushed skin-

He’s broken out of his thoughts by Charlie sitting down next to him, in sweatpants and a t-shirt. She hands him a large glass of water, knowing that they would both thank her in the morning. Dean drains it, letting a few drops run down his chin, and then says,

“_Star Wars_!”

“Yeah yeah okay,” says Sam, picking up the controller, “Which one?”

“_Rogue One_,” Dean and Charlie say in unison.

“Wait,” Charlie says, throwing up her hands, “Who was that guy Dean?”

“Oh yeah,” says Sam, turning on the PlayStation, “Wasn’t that the guy from the art gallery?”

Dean feels his throat constricting, like he had just eaten something he was allergic to.

“The guy from the art gallery?” Charlie yells, grabbing Dean’s arm, “the very hot guy that you said is too hot for you?”

“Okay, alright, I never said that,” Sam’s laughing at him and Dean flips him off, “I said that I didn’t really know him so-”

“So now you just happen to see him again? It’s fate.”

“It is not fate,” he can’t think of anything quippy to change the subject, he’s moving slower, his reflexes are down. Damn these two, they did this on purpose.

“Um. Yeah. It is,” Charlie pokes him in the chest, “What are the odds? You meeting him again? Obviously this is a Hallmark movie. I’m the funny lesbian, Sam is the longsuffering brother, and you have to marry that guy soon so you can save Christmas.”

Dean rolls his eyes, trying to force his brain to sober up.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You have to save Christmas, Dean,” Charlie says emphatically, “Marry him! It’ll be Christmas in November!”

Dean tries to get out of the conversation by force, not subtlety.

“Yeah, we met up again. So what? People do that all the time, we live in the same place. Who was that girl, Sam?”

Sam gives him a classic bitchface, but holds his composure way better than Dean.

“Her name’s Sarah, she was very nice and I got her number. Now seriously, what was going on with you and that guy? You were basically nose to nose with him when we walked up.”

Charlie shushes him loudly, flapping her hands.

“Shhhhh, they were about to kiss.”

“No we were not!” Dean tries his absolute best to not think about how his eyes kept flicking down to Cas’ lips and how they kept narrowing the space between them and how much he wished he was still at that table with him.

“Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

Dean looks from Charlie to Sam, knowing that he couldn’t weasel out of this forever. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to push it as far as he could, because what the hell was the answer? He didn’t know who Castiel was, really, except an art dealer with five siblings and eyes as blue as a clear blue sky at dusk, dark and stormy and beautiful. Had he mentioned that he was screwed?

“Nothing’s going on. We just ran into each other and started talking since you two ditched me to go get some.”

Charlie looks at Sam, they exchange a look that Dean can’t decipher.

“He’s not gonna spill.”

“Nope.”

Charlie sighs.

“Fine, but you can’t get away from this forever.”

Dean snorts. _Sure he could._

They stay drunk, eating pizza and watching _Star Wars_, and Charlie curls up on the couch when the credits roll. Dean gets her a blanket and a couple of extra pillows, leaving Sam in his chair, and then stumbles into the shower. 

The water is scalding against his skin (he loves a hot shower), and even as the smoke and sweat and smell of the bar were washed away by soap and water, he’s dragged into the memory built just a few hours before every time he closes his eyes. He was close, too close to the eyes and the hair and the scrubs and the bright laugh that cuts through him. And then his mind starts showing him things that didn’t happen, the things that he wanted, but never actually happened. Bridging the gap, pushing Castiel into a dark corner of the bar, away from prying eyes and the orange glow of light, a strong muscle in his mouth, burning, scorching kisses that set the fuse alight, running his hands down his sides, twisting them in his hair, pushed up against the wall. Dean does his best to be quiet when he touches himself, thinking of the dark hair and hands clenching on his arms, the way Castiel says his name. He imagines the water running down his body are the skittering touches, pounding on his shoulders, leaving bruises that are invisible against the ink that swirls his skin. It doesn’t take him long to reach the peak, with the image of Castiel and his white teeth and his blue eyes smiling at Dean knife sharp in his mind, and when he comes, he hits his fist against the tiled wall of the shower with a dull, wet thud, the image of Castiel fading from his mind, replaced by the realization that the water was going cold.

He turns off the shower, letting his muscles relax and his mind wander away from his made up dark corner of the bar. He was still very much drunk and it took him a second of holding the sink to make a move to brush his teeth and weave his way to his bed. You know when you’re drunk, like really drunk, and the room kinda spins even when you’re standing still? It felt like his bed was spinning in slow motion, like it was rocking him to sleep, and he falls asleep with Castiel’s blue eyes and peals of laughter in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok yes hello I'm posting again literally one day later but this chapter is one of my favs and I have *Jean Ralphio voice* no self controooooolllll  
I really hope you guys enjoy! :)


	4. The Rose Tattoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.” – Tennessee Williams, The Rose Tattoo

Dean swears he’s still hungover the next week when it’s cold outside but the landlord had kicked the heater up way too high, and Dean’s pretty much sweating in just his t-shirt, he finds himself in an empty shop for most of the night. It’s not super surprising, it is a Wednesday night on a random day in November, it’s not like it was a popular day for people to walk in and get tattooed, and his appointments had all been earlier.

Dean’s singing along with Zeppelin as he cleans up, closing the doors a little early since there was next to no chance he was about to get a walk in right before close. Plus, he was fucking starving. Benny left to take his daughter to soccer practice at five, it was Pamela’s day off, and Charlie had decided to get the flu because she hadn’t gotten her flu shot this year. So, naturally, Dean had not had a dinner break at all and he was absolutely starving. He was just thinking about what he was going to order when he got home when the bell dings behind him. God dammit. He hates turning people away but he’s dog tired and just wants to watch _Queer Eye_ at home with Sam and eat way too much Chinese takeout that was going to be delivered right into his hands thanks to the magic of Postmates.

“Hey, sorry, we’re closing up for the night. Hours are 2pm to 2am on weekends and Fridays, 10am to 8pm on weekdays,” Dean rattles off, not looking at the door.

“My apologies,” comes a familiar voice, and Dean practically breaks his neck to turn and see Castiel, looking damn fine in a long coat and beat up jeans, a t shirt visible through the open buttons of his coat. Dean swears the very sight of him takes all the air out of his lungs.

“Oh, uh, hi,” Dean manages to get out, “What, uh, what are you-”

“Well, to be honest, we’ve been interrupted mid conversation twice now, and I was in the neighborhood-”

“At 8pm on a Tuesday?”

“Yes, and I wanted to see your shop, and you.”

Dean gapes, it’s not like he’s upset at him being here, but when the hell did he tell him the name of _Kashmir_? How did he remember? Was he like some psycho stalker? Was he about to get laid or murdered?

“I do hope that’s all right,” Castiel says, looking a little nervous now.

“Oh yeah, of course,” Dean says, trying to cover his awkwardness with macho bravado, which definitely does not work, “You looking to get something done?”

“I might be,” Castiel says with a smile.

“I thought you said you couldn’t get tattoos. Squeaky clean reputation to protect?”

“Maybe I’ll get one that my clients don’t see,” and Dean definitely doesn’t miss the double meaning there, his brain going into overdrive with just _what kind_ of placement he was talking about.

Castiel starts looking at some of the artwork on the walls, the flash designs they’ve curated but never ever use, and then starts flipping through the books they have laid out below. Dean finds himself getting kinda nervous. Who’s work would he like better? Pamela’s? His? Charlie’s? Benny’s?

“This is beautiful,” Castiel says, flipping through one of Dean’s books. Dean definitely doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Castiel takes his time looking at each piece. Dean watches his hands, which are long-fingered and so beautiful and _oh my god not now not now you don’t really know this guy, Dean._

“Uh thanks,” Dean doesn’t want to be pushy, but he really can’t help the words that follow, “So, um, sorry but, what’re you doing here?”

Castiel looks up from Dean’s book, catching his eyes, and Dean really can’t look away, even if he wanted to.

“Like I said, you left the gallery opening and the bar before we could finish our conversations, and I-”

“Just came all the way out here on a Wednesday night to come to my shop? Look, it’s not that I don’t find you-” gorgeous, fascinating, one of the most interesting people he’d met in months- “like, cool or whatever, but it’s just a little weird to me that you’d come all the way out here to come see me when we’ve only met like twice.”

“Well, if I can be perfectly honest with you, those two times have made me interested.”

Dean’s brain is not working. It’s short-circuiting.

“In what?”

Castiel smile has an edge to it, he takes a step towards him.

“In you.”

Dean swallows, and he feels like he’s swallowing his own heart.

“In me?”

“Yes, I think you’re very funny. And the way you talk about your work is something that I think I could listen to all night, if you’d let me. And I did come all the way out here on a Tuesday because I couldn’t get you out of my head. I realize that I’m being very…forward, but, you did ask.”

“I did ask.”

Castiel bridges the space between them in one, two, three fluid steps. Dean wants nothing more than to remove the remaining inches of negative space.

“Would you come to dinner with me next week?”

It takes a full ten seconds for Dean to actually register the question that Castiel’s asking him.

“I-”

“If that’s too much we can-”

“No, no,” Dean says quickly because he does not want Castiel to get wrong impression here, “I-that’d be nice.”

“Okay. Then, can I get your number?”

It feels almost juvenile, like they’re teenagers, but Dean pulls his phone from his back pocket and he and Castiel add their numbers to their respective phones. Castiel’s eyes flick up at him after he presses save, and he says, tilting his head to one side,

“Then I’ll be in touch. Let me know your schedule and we can plan for next week.”

“Okay,” Dean breathes, and before he can make any other move, Castiel is headed towards the door.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

“Hey, wait,” Dean goes to Castiel and, following his impulses which he hardly ever does when it comes to this kinda stuff, he grabs Castiel by the front of his coat and kisses him. It’s brief, but when he pulls back, a wide, radiant smile splits across Castiel’s face, like the sunrise breaking across the dark horizon.

“Maybe this weekend then.”

Dean laughs softly, still holding Castiel by the front of his coat. Castiel keeps looking for a long minute, and then, with a soft smile, he opens the door, causing the bell to ding again, leaving Dean with his heart beating erratically, and the feeling of Castiel’s chapped lips burned into his skin.

\-------------------

“I’m crazy,” Dean says, head in his hands, three days after Castiel had shown up in the shop. Three days after a two second kiss that Dean couldn’t help but think about every time he closed his eyes.

“You aren’t crazy,” Pamela says, an edge of tiredness to her voice, “it’s normal to go on dates with people.”

“Not people like him.”

“You’re being so weird about this, since when were you afraid to go on a date?”

Dean doesn’t really have an answer. Not one that makes any sense, anyway.

“He’s just…I don’t know,” Dean sways from foot to foot. It’s a nervous habit, or maybe just a habit habit that he had picked up when he was a teenager. He really really really likes Castiel, or, at least, is super attracted to Castiel, and he’s a little bit terrified of that. Maybe a little beyond terrified of it.

“You gonna be okay?” Charlie asks, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, I just…yeah, I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me right now.”

“You have a crush on this hot art dealer, and you like, never get crushes on people. Feeling like you’re gonna die is kinda one of the perks.”

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Another perk.”

“Yeah well, I don’t want it.”

Charlie rolls her eyes at him.

“You’re being a baby about this.”

Dean starts pacing, unable to contain the nervous energy that was coursing through his body. He checks his phone, puts it down, checks it again, puts it down.

“Why the hell did I kiss him though? Like what kinda idiot am I? I just really went forward and kissed this guy that I don’t know and now I’m going on a date with him and is this a pity date? Oh god, it’s probably a pity date and I really should text him and tell him that I can’t-”

“Dean,” Pamela, Charlie, and Benny say his name at the same time, a three-way sigh that tells Dean he is being very annoying.

Dean takes a breath and sits down next to Pamela. Of course, he immediately starts bouncing his leg. Pamela puts a hand on his knee, stopping the shaking.

“You have got to stop this. Go home, try on three hundred outfits, and go get laid. God knows you need it.”

“That wounds me.”

“Fine, be wounded, but also, if you don’t get your ass outta here and stop wigging out, I’m going to throw you out.”

Dean rolls his eyes and sighs.

“Fine, but if it goes terribly and I never find love I’m blaming all of you.”

Pamela gives him a kiss on the cheek and pushes him towards the door.

“You’ll be fine, go on.”

Dean suffers all the way to his apartment. He takes out his phone seven separate times on his walk back, almost texting Castiel and cancelling on him, because Dean is being a total baby about this and he’s allowed to. He doesn’t have a tuxedo, Castiel won’t even tell him where they’re going, so it’s probably going to be fancy and the food is going to be like uni and caviar or something.

Right as he’s composing his “sorry something came up I can’t make it” text, Charlie texts him, knowing him better than he knows himself.

_You aren’t cancelling this date._

He sighs, staring up at the sky, which is cloudless and the kind of blue he would use when tattooing opalescent water. He wants to go on this date, he wants to get to know Castiel better, he wants to have dinner with him and he really really wants to kiss him again. But Castiel wasn’t someone he could see getting into a hookup thing with, and the whole relationship thing had burned him too many times to count, he wasn’t eager to get back into that. 

He’s such a fucking coward, part of him wishes that this’ll go badly, that there won’t be the spark he feel when he’s within ten feet of Castiel, that they’ll be able to go their separate ways at the end of the night and Dean will be able to drink to the memory of his hair, the way he laughs, but leave it at that. No strings attached, no messiness, no falling into something so deep that he’ll never be able to crawl out, and, most importantly, not having to deal with the inevitable fallout due to his own crippling inadequacy and Castiel’s realization that Dean is not good enough for him.

Jesus Christ, he hasn’t even gone on this date yet and it’s already crushing his fragile self-esteem. This was a bad idea, right? But he shouldn’t worry, it’ll probably go badly and that’ll be the end of it. He’s never been good at first dates anyway, why should he worry about this? 

His apartment feels lonely without Sam there, but he’s at work and Dean knew he’d say the same thing Charlie, Pamela, and Benny did, “you aren’t cancelling this date.” Sometimes he wished his friends didn’t care so much about his goddamn love life.

Before he can hype himself up too much, Castiel texts him to meet outside 77th Street station, and Dean immediately feels his heart do a weird twitch that makes him feel like he’s having a heart attack, especially since Castiel used a heart emoji which, is that normal pre first date etiquette? Dean has no idea, but then again, they’ve kissed before their first date so they weren’t really following the rules anyway. Whatever, Dean’s always been a rule breaker.

\--------------------

“You look very nice,” Castiel looks him up and down as he approaches from the train station down the block. It’s kind of a rainy night, and Dean had no idea where they were going, but when he had asked if he needed to rent a tuxedo, he had been told that what he usually wears is just fine. And Dean definitely didn’t go through like fourteen outfit choices before deciding on the one that made his ass look the best, so don’t even ask. He’s wearing his favorite black and red flannel over a Led Zeppelin t-shirt and his favorite ripped jeans and boots. He felt like being actually comfortable might make him less uncomfortable about this whole situation, because he was nervous as hell for this date, more nervous than he had been for any date, and that included that time he went out with Tara Benchley right when he first moved to the city.

“Uh thanks,” Dean returns Castiel’s look himself. He’s in that long coat again, wearing skinny jeans that fit too well and a light grey sweater that Dean could tell from a distance was soft and warm and as short enough that, if he lifted up his arms, Dean would be able to see a strip of his stomach. Not that he wants to…yeah, yeah he does.

“So, um, where’re we going?”

“Are you incapable of being surprised?”

“Yes.”

Castiel smiles.

“If you must know, we’re going to my favorite restaurant in the city. It’s very good and I think you’ll like it.”

“Okay, alright. Sorry, didn’t mean to mess up your surprise.”

“That’s all right.”

God, that smile could probably cure cancer.

Dean sighs, looking down at his boots, which are wet from the dirty water on the pavement.

“Okay, win me over with some food.”

They end up at this absolutely tiny Italian restaurant called Caffe Buon Gusto in the Upper East Side. It’s mostly residential, and the townhouses were lit up, soft squares of warm yellow light illuminating the manicured bushes and stone steps around them. The place is tiny, only about twenty tables total, but it’s warm and there are candles on every table and Dean is suddenly very aware that this is his first date in nearly a year and how much he wants to make a good impression. How do forks work again? They end up across from each other at a tiny table in the corner, and Dean swears he forgets how to breathe when the little candle on their table catches Castiel’s jawline, making it look as sharp as a razor. 

“You look nervous, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes snap to Castiel and he laughs to hide the fact that he’s absolutely terrified.

“Yeah, maybe just a little. It’s been a while I guess. More of a love em and leave em type of guy.”

Not that he had had a one night stand for three months (that tall girl he met in a bar who nearly ripped his dick off when he was still there in the morning, that’ll leave a bad taste in your mouth). Charlie was right, he was a homebody, he had been for a while now, not that there was anything wrong with that. Maybe that’s why he’s so goddamn nervous, he has to actively stop from bouncing his leg and probably making the table fall over.

“Why’s that?” Castiel leans forward, putting his chin on his palm, staring at Dean with his too-intense eyes.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s just that one-night stands are easier. Last relationship I had really kinda fucked me up so.”

That was the understatement of the damn millennia.

“What happened, if that’s not too forward of me?”

Dean half smiles. He decides to tell the truth, well, tell the truth in a way that won’t make the rest of the date awkward, they way that people do when their lives are going to shit and they say they’re just fine.

“Well you know, things fizzle out. Guess I didn’t realize they were fizzling though, and she ended up dumping me in a shitty way. This is great first date material by the way, I’m really laying on the charm here.”

Castiel laughs.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I couldn’t handle it, and I think you and I are past first date small talk.”

Before Dean can answer, the waiter comes by, and he knows Castiel by name, giving him a hug and asking if he wants “the usual” as he brings a wine list for each of them. Dean likes wine, don’t get him wrong, but he usually just buys a box of Franzia for him and Sam that lasts them a couple of weeks (less if Charlie comes over for movie night). He looks down the list and recognizes exactly nothing, especially since there are like thirty different versions of each wine. (How on earth can there be four versions of Chardonnay?). He’s sort of panicking, because as stupid as it is, he does want to impress Castiel and doesn’t want to pick a bad wine. Oh god, he’s so juvenile.

Castiel orders a Cabernet, and Dean copies him, because that sounds good, even though he wasn’t super crazy about red wine. He thinks he can see a twinkle in Castiel’s eyes, but he doesn’t want to look too hard, Castiel’s still too hot to handle.

“So tell me, what’s it really like being an art dealer in the Big Apple?”

“You really _are_ turning on the charm, aren’t you?” Castiel picks up a piece of bread as the waiter brings their wine, “I enjoy it. I majored in art in college, but it turns out that I am truly a terrible artist, so I switched to art history. I worked in museums for a time, until I had a friend that got me into the company I work for now.”

“Where’d you go to school?” Dean asks, taking a sip of wine and holy shit it’s actually really good.

“Brown, my parents were…insistent that I go to an Ivy League School, and Rhode Island was at least a couple of hours away from their house in Westchester.”

“They still live there?”

Castiel swills his own wine, sniffing it before he takes a sip. Dean remembered seeing that technique in _The Parent Trap_. That’s a great movie.

“No, no, they both passed. My father passed a few years ago and my mother earlier this year.”

“Man, that’s rough. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Castiel smiles at him, despite the turn the conversation had taken, “I’m much luckier than most. I have my siblings, and we are very close, but it has been a rather difficult year.”

“Yeah, I can imagine, my mom died when I was little so I’ve never really known much else.”

“And your father?”

Dean pauses. Yeah, that was definitely too much for a first date.

“Why don’t we, uh, table that one.”

“Of course.”

The waiter comes back and Castiel orders some pesto dish with mozzarella, and Dean hates pesto with a burning passion, so he orders chicken carbonara because it’s really hard to fuck up pasta, cheese, chicken, cream, and pancetta.

They while away the time until their food arrives, talking about work, family, and their favorite movies. Dean does not understand how Castiel could think that _Arrival_ is a better movie than _Tombstone_, even though he’s never actually seen _Arrival_.

“You have to see it,” Castiel says, spinning pasta around his fork in a way that only he could make look delicate, “It really is amazing.”

“Well if I educate you on Westerns you can educate me on your alien movie,” Dean is kind of amazed, this is literally some of the best food he’s ever had, and the company isn’t half bad either. Once again, he finds it so easy to talk to Castiel, he doesn’t feel like he needs to put up all the walls he usually does, which will probably bite him in the ass, but he finds that he doesn’t much care.

“It’s not just an alien movie, it’s a commentary on the choices we make, and whether we’ll alter them if we know the future.”

“Okay, okay, no need to try and sell it to me by giving me a literary analysis,” Dean snarks, rolling his eyes as Castiel sighs, relaxed and easy and stupidly handsome. He’s pushed the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows and Dean does his best not to stare at his forearms, but they really are works of art, perfect for tattoos too, if he was honest.

“Fine, tell me about your brother.”

“What do you wanna know?”

“Just tell me about him, I like to hear you talk.”

Dean grins, Castiel’s words worming their way through his defenses in spite of the walls that he thought were rock solid.

“He started work last week, he likes it. Man, he comes home and he talks about work and I just nod along and pretend like I know what a deposition or a mediation or a trial checklist is. He loves it though, it’s always been his passion, to help people. Plus, he was the first one in the family to go to college so I’m proud of him. I’d never tell him this, but it’s nice to have him back, we spent something like twelve years not living in the same place, and it’s just been nice to have him be my roommate.”

“Twelve years? That’s quite a period.”

“Yeah, you know,” Dean pauses, too much for a first date, “It’s just nice to have him back. Plus, I can annoy him all the time now instead of over the phone. What about your siblings?”

“Oh they can be a lot, especially with six of us, but it’s nice to have us all in the same place.”

“You ever think you’d move?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, not right now, at least. I love it here. It’s loud and messy and dirty and too big, but I don’t know, I’ve loved it ever since I was a kid.”

Dean smiles, the soft light of the candles and the little lamps creating shadows on the walls.

“That’s how I feel, except the first time I visited I moved here so.”

“That’s interesting, how’d you know you wanted to move here?”

“I was living in Chicago, still at the place I apprenticed at and some shit went down so I went to visit Sam in California, and on the way back to Chicago I just decided fuck it, I’m leaving. And I had always heard this place was good for starting over. So here I am.”

Castiel seems to pick up on the fact that there’s twenty million things Dean’s not saying, but he doesn’t ask, and Dean is already being way too honest, probably scaring him off, getting his half wish of making this their one and only date. The anxiety of oversharing starts to hit him, and he huffs a laugh to hide that his heart is beating irregularly, the way that it beats hurts a little, the way that Dean hates.

Castiel slides right by it though, steering them into cleaner waters of conversation, without pollution or baggage or Dean’s overwhelming fear of being known as anything other than a badass tattoo artist.

They finish dinner and Dean insists on splitting the check, even though Castiel tries his best to pull the check away from him. The bicker over it for a couple of minutes, but it’s good natured, and Castiel relents, apparently sensing that Dean will not, under any circumstances, let this go.

The cool air outside the restaurant is perfect, just what Dean needs after two and a half glasses of that really good wine, and he lets Castiel lead the way, leading him towards a station nearby.

“Where’re we going now?”

Castiel doesn’t say anything, he’s going to drive Dean absolutely crazy.

“Okay, fine, so you gotta tell me some of your non work hobbies, I feel like all I know about you is the art thing and your siblings.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m a pretty avid theatre-goer, which sort of blends perfectly into the second part of the evening.”

“What do you mean?”

“How long have you lived in the city, Dean?”

“Bout three years, why?”

“And have you ever seen a show on Broadway?”

“Uh, no? Charlie’s taken me to some stuff in Brooklyn, which has been cool, why?”

“I’m taking you to a show tonight.”

Dean balks. He stops in the middle of the sidewalk so several people have to swerve around him, earning him death glares from the people passing by, but he ignores them.

“Nah man, isn’t that, isn’t that like crazy expensive?”

“It’s not, actually, and I’m a subscriber to Roundabout so I get discounted tickets.”

Dean searches Castiel’s face, looking for the sign of a lie, like, that’s too nice, too generous for a first date right? But Castiel seems to be nothing but honest, the oceans of his eyes are clear, like a calm sea.

“Are you sure, man? I don’t want to, like, put you out or anything.”

Castiel takes two steps forward, into Dean’s space, his hands curl around Dean’s jacket, the heat of his skin burning through Dean’s t shirt.

“I’m very sure. Now, do you want to walk to the station or am I going to have to drag you there?”

Dean is not a fan of the way, anytime Castiel is closer to him than about five feet, Dean’s heart feels the need to go absolutely nuts. He wants to run again, like he always does when he feels anything in the region of his heart, but Castiel’s eyes are on him and his mouth moves without permission, not allowing him to back away, frozen in place with Castiel inches from him on the damp sidewalk.

“Fine, fine,” Dean relents, but before he can make another move, Castiel’s hand is running down his arm, lacing their fingers together and Dean seriously thinks he might be in the early stages of a heart attack, because it keeps beating off kilter every time he looks at Castiel.

They walk, hand in hand, to the station, and Dean likes the feel of Castiel’s hand in his own, they fit well together, and even though Dean spent the majority of his life hating these kind of scenes in movies, he really doesn’t mind walking through the evening streets of New York holding hands with a really ethereally hot guy.

They have to split apart to go through the turnstiles, and they ride the few stops to 42nd Street, emerging on the bustling night streets of Midtown. The theater district is always brightly lit, with people waiting in line to go into shows, and even though Dean had never been a theatre geek like Charlie is, he did like the lights and the theatres, because they got away from the blinding LED lights of Times Square. It was softer there, somehow, even though it was just as busy, it felt like it was world away from one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, like the Northeast’s Disney, only way dirtier, the people in the costumes charging money for their photos.

Cas leads him into the American Airlines theater, and though everyone smiles at them, Dean feels like his heart is constricting again, like he’s struggling to breathe. They find their seats in the orchestra, and Castiel guides Dean, who feels supremely underdressed for this whole thing, in his flannel and his t shirt and his torn up jeans, but he follows Castiel’s lead, and he can’t help staring at the dimly lit set, why the hell was he nervous to see a play? Why’s he being so dumb?

“Are you sure it was okay for me to wear this?”

Castiel laughs quietly, handing Dean a playbill the usher gave him.

“I’ve seen people show up to these things in sweatpants, so there’s no need to wear a tuxedo.”

Dean’s on edge as they sit down, watching the people (mostly old, white New Yorkers who probably hate tattoos), file into their seats. Castiel puts a warm hand on his arm, making Dean jump.

“Are you okay, Dean?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine, it’s just a lot to take in.”

“I really think you’ll like this, I’ve heard good things.”

“From who, your clients?”

Castiel smiles. Dean melts a little.

“No, from my friends and my brothers. One of them works at the American Theatre Wing, she sees everything first and then tells me what’s worth seeing. Plus, I told you that my brother Balthazar works in live theatre, he saw this a couple of weeks ago and loved it as well.”

“You see a lot of this stuff?”

“I do. Like I said, I am a little bit of a fan when it comes to live theatre.”

“So you’re a nerd.”

“Oh, what gave it away? I usually don’t like to broadcast it.”

“Are you teasing me?”

Castiel’s eyes glint in the dim yellowish light of the theatre. Dean’s heart jumps to his throat. Fuck.

“Only a little.”

Dean laughs, but before he can say anything, the lights in the theatre go dim, and the lights rise with the sound of crashing waves.

Dean does not expect to love _The Rose Tattoo_ as much as he does. Sure, he does have a serious weakness for Tennessee Williams, as evidenced by the blue rose, which is still fresh, on his arm. It’s longer than any show he’s ever been to, nearly three hours with the intermission, but he’s pulled into the world, the Mississippi sand and gulf, the crashing waves, the real sand covering the stage, as easily as if he was slipping into a long forgotten dream. 

As the show progresses, he ends up leaning forward, trying to get as close to the stage as he could, his elbows on his knees, eyes trained on the stage, not even leaving when the stage goes dark for intermission. It seems like, no matter where he looks, from the corner of the set where sand trickles onto the carpeted floor, to the backdrop, where the ocean moved and changed with the play, the ocean mirroring the rise and fall of Serafina Delle Rose. 

Castiel watches him, he can feel his eyes on him, burning holes into his skin, but Dean is lost in the world again the second the curtain rises, and he doesn’t even know why he cries when the show ends, but he tries to surreptitiously wipe his eyes on his sleeve. As he’s the first one in the audience to stand and give an ovation to the actors.

He sorts of feels lighter than when he came in, in a good way, like his heart had experienced something cleansing, like when he wipes down the Impala’s windshield after a long road trip. He doesn’t say anything as he and Castiel head into the chilly streets, crowded with chattering people who Dean pays no mind, he’s lost in replaying tiny moments from the show, his mind filled with the sound of the ocean and the smell of salt water that he’s pretty sure he just made up when he got lost in the world of the stage

Dean has no idea where they’re going, but Castiel pulls them into a wide alley between two theatres, where they’re less compelled to keep moving by the thronging crowds on the dark, wet streets. Castiel is staring at Dean, who’s finally coming down from his high _The Rose Tattoo_ gave him.

“What?” he asks, sheepishly.

“Would you like to get coffee?”

“Yeah, you know a good place near here?”

“I do, it’s my apartment.”

Dean stops breathing.

“What type of girl do you think I am?”

“No type at all, I was hoping just to hear your thoughts on the show.”

Dean likes to pretend he’s a confident guy, but he’s gotta admit, the second that he looks up at Castiel’s high-rise on Park Avenue, he really feels like running the other direction. Castiel seems to know what he’s thinking, because he takes Dean’s hand again and pulls him inside.

The lobby is marble and dark wood and the light fixtures that have to be about thirty feet tall. It’s nicer than the nicest hotel he’s ever seen, and Castiel fucking lives here? His building has a doorman and a keycard to get into it, and a code to get to his floor.

“You keeping the Mona Lisa in here?”

Castiel chuckles, taking Dean by the arm and guiding him towards the correct elevators.

Castiel’s apartment is absolutely stunning. Look, he had seen this building, walked by it, remembered reading that _Forbes_ article about how big and fancy and tall it was, but the inside of the thing was even more beautiful than anyone could imagine. Castiel flicked on the hall light as they entered the apartment, leading him into an apartment that was so beyond every magazine Dean had ever looked at in every doctor’s office he had ever been to. The walls were white, lit dimly by lamps, and Dean could see the living room, which was, of course, huge, and an open kitchen that would make a chef wet themselves. And the view. Holy shit. Even at night, the view was what made the probably insane price tag of this place worth it. The windows were huge, floor to ceiling glass, and every window he could see either Central Park or the river. The place was open and spacious and had soft lighting that made the whole place feel comfortable, not clinical, like Dean had always thought these modern places would feel.

The walls were covered in art, but it wasn’t the weirdo stuff from the gallery, it was an amalgamation of things: modern, cubist, expressionist, Renaissance, and everything in between, and eclectic grouping that seemed to just…fit Castiel.

“Wow,” Dean goes straight for the windows and looking down at the pitch black rectangle stretching up the island, the beautiful blackness of Central Park at night, surrounded by the glittering specks of light of the city surrounding it.

“It does look better in the day,” Castiel says, hanging up his coat in a hall closet and heading over to the white marble-covered kitchen to where a sleek coffee pot was sitting in the corner.

“I think it looks nice this way,” Dean watches Castiel’s back as his broad shoulders strained the fabric of his sweater. Dean takes off his flannel, draping it over the back of one of the island chairs. He sees Castiel’s entertainment center, a flatscreen hung over the white fireplace, which is surrounded by so many movies it almost makes his eyes water. Dean approaches the oak shelves and is not at all surprised to see a seriously wide range of movies. _Casablanca_, _Mad Max: Fury Road_, _Saw, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Normal Heart, Interstellar,_ and, Dean’s super excited to see _Smokey and the Bandit_ on there as well. He can’t tell how they’re ordered. It’s not alphabetical, not by genre, not even by series, it seems like they just get put on the shelves in a way that Castiel understands, an insight into his mind.

He jumps as Castiel appears at his shoulder, holding out a mug of coffee.

“See anything you like?”

_Jesus Christ._

“Uh yeah,” Dean takes the mug of coffee, “You’ve got a hell of a collection.”

“I really really really like movies.”

Dean smiles at him, hinting at flirtatious.

“I can tell, you ever heard of going digital? Save the planet?”

“I have some things digitally,” Castiel says, sipping his coffee, “but I would rather talk about the show than my film collection.”

Dean pouts a little, but he can’t deny that he’s pretty eager to talk about it too.

Castiel and Dean end up on the couch, and they talk about the show, the way it made Dean feel, which he normally hates doing, especially on a first fucking date, but Castiel is so open and honest and Dean is a little drunk on how well the evening has gone.

“I just really liked the way it made me feel like I was at the beach, you know? Like the sand and the sound of the waves and the way they walked on the set, I really felt like I was there, not in a seat in a theatre, you know?”

“I do.”

“I also think that Serafina getting to heal and the circle that the rose tattoo itself goes in is really cool.”

“Are we going to talk literary criticism now?”

“Yeah, maybe we are,” Dean snarks, trying to ignore that Castiel’s hand was tracing the lines of the tattoo on his arm again, “what was your favorite part of the show, then?”

“If anyone else asked me, I would say that it was the way that Della rises from her grief, the way she’s able to move past and accept the fact that her husband was not the perfect man she let herself create in his death. Her growth in the show is one of my favorite arcs in his plays.”

“But since I’m asking?”

Castiel looks down at Dean’s outstretched arms, fingers still lightly tracing the ink under his skin.

“I really enjoyed watching you as well.”

“Watching me?”

“The way you watched the play, the way you gasped and hunched and reacted, it was compelling and adorable.”

“Can I tell you something?” Dean says, fidgeting with the edge of the cream-colored couch cushion he has his back pressed against.

“You can.”

“I’ve had a really good time with you tonight.”

Castiel leans forward without hesitation and presses his lips against Dean’s. It’s sort of like someone lit a firecracker in his gut, because he pitches forward and responds in kind. He twists his hands into Castiel’s dark hair, which is just long enough to pull. Castiel leans forward so Dean’s laying down on the couch, his mouth gasping open and Castiel takes the opening, pushing his tongue deep in Dean’s mouth, pulling a groan from deep in his chest. His heart is thundering in his chest.

They lay there, making out like horny fucking teenagers, for who knows how long. Dean swears he’s never had a make out session this good. Castiel just knows, he knows what’s going to make Dean arch into him, was going to draw those low, guttural noises from his chest, what’s going to make him ache in all the right ways.

Castiel starts trying to get up, trying to pull Dean to the bedroom, but Dean resists, because he knows himself, and he knows if he takes one step towards that darkly lit bedroom that he wouldn’t have the strength to leave.

“Cas,” he says, breathing hard, almost panting, “I can’t. Not tonight.”

Castiel’s hair is messed up, sticking up in all directions, and he’s breathing hard too. Thank god Dean’s not the only one that’s effected by this.

“Call me Cas again,” he breathes, leaning down to kiss Dean again. Dean whispers it into his ear and Castiel, Cas shudders, biting Dean’s bottom lip as the word rolls off his tongue, sweet like honey in his mouth.

Cas tries again to pull Dean into his bedroom, making the subtle moves even subtler by biting Dean’s earlobe and sucking lightly, kissing his neck, mouthing at his jawline, driving Dean fucking crazy, like he can’t even breathe.

“Not tonight, Cas,” he whispers, and Cas whines, touching Dean through his jeans. But Dean, with a supreme effort, sits up, putting space between them. He drags his hand a little softly down the side of Castiel’s face. He kisses him, gently, a little less desperately.

“I should really go.”

Cas huffs a sigh, rolling his eyes and rolls off of Dean.

“Can I take a rain check?” Dean leans forward and kisses Cas again, running his tongue gently, hopefully a little tantalizingly across his bottom lip.

“If you weren’t so very, very good at that I would be giving you the silent treatment, but yes, you can take a rain check.”

Admittedly, it takes Dean a while to get to the door. He picks up his flannel, and then Cas is biting gently at his ear, teeth clicking gently against the metal of his piercings. He puts his coffee mug in the sink, then finds himself pressing Cas against the cool stone of the counter, hands in his hair, Castiel’s own hands running up his sides under his shirt, warm skin on skin. When they finally make it to the door, Cas kisses him again, long and slow and deep. Dean leans into him, their bodies pressed together, pulse thrumming loudly in his ears.

“I’ll see you later,” Dean says as they pull apart.

“You will. Goodnight Dean. Get home safe.”

“Goodnight Cas.”

One last kiss, and the door closes behind him.

Dean is in a haze as he rides the train home, a hickey or two visible on his neck as he thinks about Castiel’s hot breath and his hands and the noises he made when Dean kissed his neck. He doesn’t even mind the trek back to his apartment from the station, he sort of feels like he’s walking on air, like he’s moving faster than usual. He gets to his own apartment, worlds away from Cas’ high rise on Park Avenue, and he tries to shut the door quietly, kicking off his boots at the door. He doesn’t even shower, just collapses into bed, plugging in his phone and sees he has a message from Cas.

_When can I see you again?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just survived the longest week at work ever so I'm rewarding myself by posting the longest chapter in the world lmao. I really hope you guys enjoy, and I would love to know what you think! :)


	5. Marks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No matter what, nobody can take away the dances you've already had." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“Wow, someone had a good night,” Charlie mocks from the front counter, as Dean stumbles in a full half an hour late for opening, thank god Pamela has a set of keys. He was pretty sure the shirt he was wearing was backwards, his shoes were untied. He was pretty much a mess from start to finish.

“What?” Dean grumbles, still pretty exhausted from being out until like 3 in the morning.

“Have you, oh I don’t know, seen the state of your neck, Dean?” Charlie asks, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Uh, to be honest? No. Didn’t even look in the mirror this morning.”

“You might want to take a peek, then.”

Dean approaches the full-length mirror on the wall. _Fuck_. His neck and jawline are littered with bruises, dark purple and blue contrasted against his skin. His chest aches and his heart jolts when he sees them because then he’s taken right back to Cas’ apartment and the feel of him on top of Dean and oh nope nope nope he could not think about this while he was at work.

“So, what’d you guys get up to?” Charlie wiggles her eyebrows at him, but Dean is not gonna take the bait she’s dangling in front of him, even though a part of him wants to sit down and gossip with her for the rest of the day.

“Went to dinner at this little place on the Upper East Side and then went to a show.”

“A show,” Pamela asks, coming out from the autoclave, “what show?”

“_The Rose Tattoo_, it was-”

“Oh my god I’m dying to see that!” Charlie squeals, “was it so good?”

“Yeah, it was actually really great. He may have converted me on the whole Broadway thing.”

“Wow. Dean Winchester, a theatre man,” Charlie teases, egged on by Benny laughing from the front.

“I just said it was good, this doesn’t mean you can drag me to some movement piece where all the do is dance around and make weird noises.”

“That was one time and it was a devised piece.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

Charlie rolls her eyes, and switches back immediately to Dean’s date, which is what he’d been trying to scoot her away from. It’s not like he didn’t want to talk about it, hell, he wanted to shout about it from the rooftops if he could, but it almost felt like, if he talked about it, it wouldn’t actually be real. Or, that talking about it could make it more real, which, let’s be honest, was just as scary.

“What did you do after?”

“Nothing you need to know about, although I do think he’s got a ten-million-dollar apartment.”

“Come on now,” Benny says, leaning back in his chair so only the back two legs were on the ground, “Don’t exaggerate.”

“Benny, dude, I swear I’m not. He’s in that high rise on Park? That new one they just built a couple of years ago?”

“That square one,” Pamela’s jaw drops, “I don’t think those places go for_ less_ than ten million.”

“Y’all should have seen it, the place is…amazing.”

“Bet that wasn’t the only thing that was amazing.”

“Ok Charlie.”

“What? I’m just saying, you either got beat up by someone who had a fascination with your neck or that guy is very very good at giving hickies.”

Dean pauses before answering. He’s not trying to be difficult, because Cas was amazing, it was the best first date he’d had in, well, ever, but the morning had dawned and he realized that what he was doing was stupid, reckless, him just asking to get hurt.

“He might be very good at giving them, but I don’t know if I’m going to-”

“Dean Winchester, don’t you even finish that sentence,” Pamela says, her eyes turning stormy in about .5 seconds. Dean shifts his weight, avoiding the three pairs of eyes watching him, because they can see him better than he can see himself.

“Okay, well just-”

“I know what you’re going to say, so don’t even bother.”

“Oh yeah? No you don’t.”

Pamela stands to face him, hands on her hips. Charlie and Benny both brace for impact in the background.

“You’re going to say that he’s too pretty and too rich and too high class for you, but did you think about that once for more than five seconds last night?”

“I-”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. So maybe just accept that sometimes things are good and this nice, cool guy likes you and just ignore the rampant division of classes that we all have to live our lives in most of the time?”

“Listen Pam, I get where you’re coming from, I do, but he’s, I don’t know, he’s like perfect. Like _perfect_ perfect. And I just get a little, you know, suspicious. I’ve never had a first date that good, there wasn’t even any awkward silence.”

“And that’s bad because-”

“Because it means it could go south in a second.”

Pamela sighs and approaches Dean, putting her hands on his shoulders.

“Listen to me, just go with it, okay. One good date does not a serial killer make. He’s a nice guy who you like and he clearly likes you. Just roll with the punches.”

“How do you know he’s a nice guy?”

“Because you generally aren’t into douchebags, even though you like to play one on TV.”

Dean smiles at that because god knows that Pamela knows him better than just about anybody.

He pauses, looking down at his phone, the notification from Cas still there.

“If you don’t text him, I will,” Charlie says from his shoulder.

Dean sends an appealing look to Benny for help, but he just shrugs and says,

“Hey man, if these two think you need to see this guy again, odds are you need to see this guy again.”

Dean sighs again, trying, in the breath out, to release the anxiety that was already pooling in his chest.

_You down for a shitty movie tonight?_

Dean decides to put his phone away, like, away away for the day, because otherwise he was going to be checking it every ten minutes to see if Castiel had responded to his text. So he does what he always does: he gets lost in the work. He gets lost in clean lines and tiny details and perfect shading, in creating art on delicate skin, careful never to push too hard, to never make the ink blow out. He gets lost in the music that plays on the radio, gets lost in the images, the outlines and the shapes and the way he moves the skin to make his art.

His appointments fly by that day, he registers his clients sometimes by piece, not by name, which probably wasn’t a great customer service thing, but they seemed to like it when they’d come back for a second piece and he’d greet them with a loud “guillotine! How the hell are ya?”

That particular day, or Not Looking At His Phone day, as he was calling it in his head, he has rabbit, crescent moon, and, weirdly, spoon. People will get anything tattooed on them, that’s part of why he loves it so much. Spoon and him get into a really lengthy conversation about where the Marvel Cinematic Universe will go next, and though he’s concentrating on tiny details with a needle to their skin, they keep wanting to twist around to make their point that Doctor Strange is cooler than Tony Stark (so not true by the way, just because the guy has space magic doesn’t mean he’s the savior of the known universe). Thanks to this, the day really sorta flies by, and Dean finishes up the day with a consult for someone wanting to get a super detailed mechanical spider on their shoulder, which Dean is so so down for, he does some rough sketches for the person while they’re at the shop, and they love them, so Dean’s ending the night on a happy note.

He emerges from the consultation room (also the sketching room, and the break room…listen space is tight in New York City) to find that everyone else is already done for the day, just hanging around shooting the shit, waiting for a walk in that’s unlikely to come. He pats his pockets for his phone, looking for the time.

“You know there’s a clock on the wall right there?” Benny points out, a smirk on his face that only widens when Dean mimics him.

“Damn, already 6:30.”

“He can read clocks, ladies and gentlemen!” Charlie dodges away from Dean, who tries a playful jab at her, and he sees she has something in her hands.

“Is that,” he twists around her to get a better look, “Is that my phone?”

It turns into a multi-part game of hot potato between Benny, Charlie, and Pamela, and Dean, running from person in a futile attempt to get it back is internally thanking himself for getting a super-protective case as the phone flies over his head towards Benny, who catches it and leans away from Dean.

“Charlie, catch!”

“Theft is a crime!”

Charlie takes a look at the screen, nearly wheezing with laughter and says,

“Oh, a text message from Cas!”

Dean’s heart jumps all the way to his throat and he has to fight the urge to tackle her to the ground. She can tell that in his face as he scrambles towards her. She dodges him again, when the hell did she get so fast? She holds the phone away from Dean as far as she can, and Dean leans over her, fingers outstretched and grabbing at the air, desperate to grab the little device where Cas’ unread words waited for him.

“Don’t be desperate Dean, that’s what you always taught me.”

“Okay, okay, not desperate,” Dean says, hand still outstretched over Charlie’s head, fingers reaching out, still trying to grab it from her hand.

“Come on now, Charlie, give him the phone,” Benny smiles, “I think he’s had enough.”

“Some friends you guys are.”

“We’re great friends, only good friends would have a ten-minute game of hot potato with a phone and not break it.”

“You guys are no fun,” Charlie tosses the phone to Dean, who’s so hyped up his fingers are shaking.

It takes him ten seconds longer than it should to read the text, his brain forgetting how to read in the midst of his fear of Cas saying “No thanks, I’ve thought about it and I’ll be seeing someone who owns ten houses and who’s life is out of a magazine. Nice meeting you!”

_I would love that. What did you have in mind?_

Relief floods his brain, and he starts typing, walking away from Charlie who was trying to peek over his shoulder.

_How about that new Charlie’s Angels? All the theaters around me are shitty, you got a good one around you?_

_I do. What time?_

Dean look up the showtimes on his phone.

_9:15 good with you? I know that’s kinda late but the shop closes at 8 so._

_Perfect. I can’t wait._

Dean feels like someone blew up a balloon in his stomach and his face sort of hurts from grinning, but it’s a nice feeling. He kinda feels like he doesn’t deserve it.

“Okay. I’m seeing him tonight,” Dean does his best to act casual and knows they can all see right through him anyway, “I’m gonna head home and change.”

“You’re not staying until close?” Charlie eyebrows are so high they’ll disappear if she’s not careful.

“I’m allowed.”

“Well, coming in late and now leaving early? This is going on your permanent record. Don’t make us write you up.”

“Write me up, huh?” Dean grins shaking his head as he collects his coat from the closet, he could hear Benny and Charlie snickering from the other side of the door, Pamela’s sighs accompanying them.

“Is this hickey man really worth your permanent record at work Dean?”

“Don’t make fun of me because I normally stay until close and I’m not this one time.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I just thought that, since it’s you that’s always saying, ‘You never know, maybe Liv Tyler will walk in one day’ that you’d be staying until close no matter what.”

“It’s not my fault you hate walk-ins.”

Charlie grins, wiggling her eyebrows at him again.

“Oh I don’t, just interesting that you’d be so eager to leave after only one date.”

Dean tries not to feel viscerally uncomfortable at the idea of how obvious he was clearly being, especially with the way all three of them were looking at him.

“I really should go change,” he shift his weight in that nervous way, trying to push those usual inadequate feelings out of his fucked up head.

“Changing into a ball gown?” Benny calls from his station and Charlie immediately bursts into fits of hysterical laughter.

“Okay yeah whatever,” Dean rolls his eyes and heads for the door.

“What’s that Taylor Swift song you love?” Charlie asks before he can leave, “That early one she did about Romeo and Juliet? That’s you tonight. Star-crossed lovers.”

“Shut up,” Dean lets the door slam on his way out.

\-------------------------------

Sam is, of course, thrilled that Dean is going on another date, since he , as Sam pointed out, hadn’t been on a “real date” in over a year, and that had ended with nothing but a diner he wasn’t allowed to frequent and a black eye that hadn’t healed for nearly three weeks. 

“I’m really excited for you,” Sam stands in Dean’s bedroom doorway, leaning on the doorframe as Dean not-at-all frantically searches for something suitable to wear.

“It’s just a date, man, don’t go all gooey on me.”

“Second date is a big deal for you, especially since you love to pretend that you can’t feel anything above your ribs.”

“Why is everyone making fun of me about this?”

“I’m not, just pointing out that you don’t often go on second dates.”

“Whatever.”

“So it went well last night then? I didn’t get to see you this morning.”

“Yeah, he, he’s great. We had a good time. He took me to a play.”

“A _play_?” Sam looks incredulous, “You went to a play?”

Dean looks up from his semi-frantic search to see Sam’s wide eyes. Why does everyone think he’s such a theatre hater? He had only told Charlie that that weird movement thing they saw when Sam had just gotten back to the city was worse than watching a guy throw up on the subway car he was in, but that didn’t mean he hated all theatre. They’re just being dramatic, as usual.

“I’ve been to them before, with you and Charlie.”

“Yeah, but to go on your own. Wow, I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean rolls his eyes, looking for that nice leather jacket that he knows he has in here somewhere, “What about you? How was work?”

“Work was good. I think people there like me but who knows?”

“I’m sure they love you. Is it all suits there, like is that all they wear?”

“Can’t exactly wear flannels and jeans to work at this law firm, Dean,” Dean doesn’t even have to look at Sam to see the bitchface he was giving him, “I don’t know, I’m excited, especially since I’ve been learning so much and studying for the bar, but I’m nervous too, nervous about this next step.”

“Don’t be,” Dean says, lacing up his boots, “You’ll be fine. Plus, you’re gonna be like this baby law clerk for a while, anyway, so they aren’t going to give you think you can like mega fuck up.”

“How is it that you say the weirdest shit that’s somehow still comforting?” Sam’s exasperation is juxtaposed directly by the tension bleeding from his shoulders.

“Because I’m your big brother, and I’m just that good.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything, your ego’s already too big.”

Dean rolls his eyes again and goes to check himself out in the mirror. Yeah, he looks good. Very fuckable. Not that he…yeah.

“How’s this?”

“You look good, what’re you seeing?”

“That new _Charlie’s Angels_ movie.”

Sam laughs.

“You’re just full of surprises right now.”

“Okay it’s mostly because I love Elizabeth Banks. Plus it’s an action movie, it’ll be good. Don’t stay up too late.”

“I should be saying that to you,” Sam says as they make their way to the front door, Dean checking for his keys and wallet before he leaves.

“Don’t you dare watch _Bake Off_ without me,” Dean warns as he opens the front door, he even makes Sam pinky promise because you can’t fuck with pinky promises.

“Have a good time,” Sam says as he shuts the door, no doubt to study his weird law books and geek out to National Geographic all night.

Dean would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous, because even though this wasn’t the first date, this is the first second date he had gone on in…hell, over a year at least.

Dean gets to the theater a respectable twenty minutes before the movie starts, and waits by the ticket booth, shifting from foot to foot, kind of, sort of afraid that he was going to get stood up, even though he has literally no reason to think that Cas wasn’t going to show up. At 9:05 sharp he sees Cas round the corner, looking, again, way too good in a white button down shirt tucked into his jeans and converse. Man, he could look good in anything.

“Good to see you,” he smiles brightly at Dean, making him turn beet red in like one second, “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“What can I say, I’m an eager beaver.”

“Good, I am too. Those hickies on your neck look great by the way.”

“Oh thanks, I only got made fun of at work for the whole day about them.”

“I do my best,” Cas bites his lip as he says that, and Dean suddenly wants to ditch this movie, but he’s making a serious effort to take things slow here, no matter how hard Cas is making that for him.

“I already got the tickets so we can just go in.”

“Sounds great,” Cas takes his hand and pull him inside the warm popcorn smelling lobby.

“How was your day?” Cas asks as they wait in line for popcorn.

“Good, pretty busy. I had two consultations and then two scheduled appointments which is great. We may have to close down walk ins soon, we’re getting so busy we hardly ever have time to take them.”

“That’s good news.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. What about you, how’s your dealing going?”

“You make it sound so nefarious,” Cas laughs, “The gallery is doing well, and I’m working on a charity auction that’s taking up a lot of my time.”

“What’s the charity?”

“It’s a Queens based charity, helping young LGBT+ single parents, teens, and children flee domestic abuse situations, getting them into better housing, shelters, getting assistance, things like that.”

“Wow…that sounds amazing, the charity that is,” Dean says.

“It is, I think so, anyway, so I’m trying to curate a collection from exclusively from the community, trying to find a lot of young, queer artists, it’s been great so far, the project is kind of in its embryonic stages, so there’s a lot left to go.”

“That really is cool.”

Cas smiles at him, staring a little too long, so the guy behind the counter has to ask them what they want a second time.

They get buttery popcorn and a big soda and find their way to two seats on the very back row. The theater is almost empty, which is sort of perfect and part of Dean’s master plan that he’s been concocting all day. Which is to kiss Castiel again.

They whisper through the trailers, laughing and making fun of the shitty action movies coming out. The movie itself is actually pretty good, not as bad as the box office might suggest, it’s fun and silly and exactly the kind of movie Dean likes to see in theaters, and if he takes the opportunity to do that sweet yawn-into-an-arm-around-shoulders move halfway through, that’s just a bonus.

At some point, Dean’s not exactly sure when, the touching turned to a light kiss on the side of Cas’s face, which turned into a kiss on the underside of Dean’s jaw, which turned into a full on make out session in the back of movie theater. It’s not like anyone could see, the nearest people were five rows in front of them, but Dean has to actively work not to make noise or those gross kissing sounds that would definitely carry, even during an action scene probably. They have to stop every so often when the movie gets quiet, giggling and pressing feather-light kisses to each other’s noses or jaw or cheek or forehead. They almost get caught when Cas bites lightly at Dean’s throat and he can’t suppress a low groan that causes the lady in front of them to turn around, looking for the source of the noise.

When the credits roll, they don’t get up immediately, instead lounging in their seats as everyone else leaves, Cas kissing some of the leftover popcorn butter off the side of Dean’s mouth, tongue running over his lip ring.

“This poor theater employee doesn’t need to see this,” Dean points out, chasing after Cas’ lips anyway.

“You’re probably right,” Cas says, stretching, “Can I convince you to come home with me tonight?”

“You’ve already made a very compelling argument,” Dean says, slipping his hand into Cas’ as they leave the theater, tossing their trash into the bin by the door, because they aren’t animals, “But I have an early appointment tomorrow, full day.”

Cas rolls his eyes and sets his mouth in a very cute way.

“I’m starting to think you’re leading me on to blue ball me.”

Dean throws back his head and laughs.

“Well I’m blue balling myself then too. And it’s not like I don’t want to go home with you because,” he leans over and bites Cas’s earlobe, making Cas shudder, “I really really do. But I’m off Friday. I promised Sam we’d go to this new restaurant he wants to try that night celebrate his first full week of work, but-”

“How about Thursday night then? I intend to keep you all night.”

“Thursday night works for me,” Dean doesn’t even bother to disguise his excitement, “I can cook dinner.”

“You cook?”

“Don’t get any ideas, I’m not here to be a kept boy.”

Cas laughs at that.

“I don’t intend to, but I do have some, uh, allergies that might-”

“No worries, Charlie’s gluten free and Sam’s allergic to corn, so I’m used to it, just text me and I’ll work around it.”

They walk to the train station, still hand in hand, and when they part ways, they kiss for a little too long, so that Dean can feel the stares of the people walking around them to their respective platforms.

“I’ll see you on Thursday then,” Dean says, a little breathless when they break apart. Cas smiles and runs his thumb along Dean’s bottom lip, catching a little at the silver metal.

“You will. Text me when you get home.”

“Okay,” Dean breathes, “You too.”

Cas leans forward and presses another kiss to the side of his mouth, but pulls away as Dean leans in for more.

“Thursday,” he whispers, turning towards his uptown platform.

“Can’t get here soon enough,” Dean mutters, watching Cas walk away, hands in his coat pockets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!!! I’m back to my usual routine tomorrow and finally had a little bit of time to edit so I’m ringing in the new year with a chapter update! I hope you guys enjoy and, as always, I would LOVE to hear from you :)


	6. Details

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed." - A.S. Byatt

The next few days were some of the longest of Dean’s life. He was sizzling with anticipation of seeing Cas again, his body aching for it any time he had a millisecond to think about their impending dinner. Dean has never planned a menu so carefully in his life, reading and rereading Cas’ list of allergies (shellfish, mushrooms, and, weirdly, cinnamon) to make sure there wasn’t anything that he was planning on making that Cas couldn’t eat.

Apparently, his eagerness is noticeable, because Charlie makes fun of him about it whenever she can, and even Benny and Pamela comment on how keyed up he is, especially the afternoon of the dinner, when Dean plans on leaving early so he can grocery shop at this tiny place nearby that has all the good organic vegetables.

“I’ve never seen you like this, cooking dinner for someone,” Pamela spares him a glance as she finishes up with a consultation, smiling and thanking them in her customer service voice.

“You better get laid for all this, this menu looks more complicated than a college band’s marching pattern,” Charlie pipes up, looking over his shoulder as he triple checks his list.

“Okay, okay, lay off me.”

“Not in the cards, love,” Pamela pats him gently on the back and he looks over to Benny for some support, only to get a shrug in return. Damn them, it was like having four siblings instead of one sometimes.

“Well, I guess I’d better go then,” Dean stands and stretches, hoping that making the muscles in his stomach taut might ease the butterflies that have been fluttering insistently in his chest all day. No such luck, he’s doomed to feel anxious through his whole grocery shopping trip.

“Good luck. Be careful. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Charlie smirks at Dean’s nervous energy.

“That’s a short list, Charlie.”

He waves goodbye and hits the dirty pavement, heading toward the store and moving like a man on a mission, knowing what brands of everything he needed. He hoped Cas had at least _some_ of the basics, even though he had insisted he was a terrible cook and could burn anything from popcorn to lunchables, so Dean just gets what he needs, knowing they can at least Postmates if they really need to. He doesn’t flirt with the cute girl at checkout, even though he definitely normally would, because that nervous energy he’s been trying to tamp down since their date on Monday is bubbling in his throat, threatening to spill out if he does anything too nuts.

Dean is nothing if not completely punctual, so he’s texting Cas that he’s downstairs in the obscenely fancy lobby at exactly 6:00pm. Cas comes down to get him, and relieves him of a couple of his bags, smiling in a way that immediately eases the knot of anxiety in his chest.

“Wow, you really went all out, didn’t you?”

“Listen, if you never get a home cooked meal I figured I should make one that’ll really blow your socks off.”

Cas’ apartment is just as beautiful as the last time Dean had seen it, all soft light and pretty wood floors, and Dean settles himself in the pristine chef’s kitchen, laying out each of the ingredients he had carefully chosen on the massive marble island, Cas sitting across from him in one of the chairs tucked neatly into the slab of cold stone.

“Have you ever used anything in here?”

“That’s not fair. I use that coffee maker all the time.”

Dean laughs as he rummages around in the drawers, finding a cutting board and a nice sharp knife, and he begins chopping vegetables, chatting amicably with Cas as he prepares the food. It’s one of the greatest labors of love you can do, at least in his opinion. Homemade cooking is just so much better than anything else, and Dean likes to think that he’s a pretty damn good cook. So he works, listening to Cas talk about his day, chopping and prepping and looking at his list.

“What’re you making, then?” Cas looks at the list with interest, trying to read it upside down before Dean pulls it back towards himself.

“I don’t think so, it’s my turn to surprise you.”

Cas smiles a little softly.

“You do that quite often.”

Dean feels himself blushing and concentrates on finishing his prep, washing the rice and the lentils, making sure all his vegetables were ready to go in the oven, taking his time with the details, because he wants this to be really, truly perfect.

Forty five minutes later, Dean and Cas are sitting at the little breakfast nook table, facing each other, the city sparkling around them, as Dean explains his menu as he would explain any labor of love.

“Okay so we’ve got bacon wrapped filet mignon with garlic butter, lemon rice with rosemary and lentils, oven roasted carrots and cauliflower, and then there’s blueberry pie that I did not make for dessert, but it is from my favorite bakery in the city.”

Cas stares at the plate, mouth slightly open, seemingly at a loss for words.

“Dean…this is amazing.”

“Like I said, I really wanted to give you a good home cooked meal and-”

“This is not home cooked. You can get this in a restaurant.”

“Sure you can, Restaurant Dean, open whenever I’m awake and feel like cooking.”

Cas chuckles, pouring them each a glass of blood-red wine, and Dean takes a sip, grateful for the bitterness lingering on his tongue, contrasting nicely with the sweetness he felt at this whole situation.

Cas takes his first bite, and Dean watches him unashamedly, because if it was bad he needed to know it straight up, and he felt like he was pretty good at reading people, even though Cas threw him for a loop sometimes. Just like now, when this _sound_ leaves his chest and Dean should _not_ get turned on at watching someone eat, but fuck, Cas keeps making those noises which must mean the food is fucking good. His eyes are closed and he leans back in his chair, savoring every bite, and Dean hardly even tastes his own food because he’s too caught up in watching Cas, which is probably weird but Dean can’t even find it in himself to care.

That hunger, the one that he gets when he’s around Cas is back. Not a hunger for food, or for bad TV, a hunger for _Cas_, not just his body, which Dean absolutely wants, but he wants to know all the details of Cas. He wants to know what he’s like in the morning, what he looks like when he sleeps, what he thinks about licorice, what his dreams for his future are. It’s utterly terrifying and completely overwhelming, and Dean sort of feels like one of the soldiers fighting a losing battle in that painting because he cannot control this feeling, as much as he likes to control everything, he can’t control this.

He takes a steadying breath and makes a supreme effort not to watch every move Cas makes.

“Fuck Dean, this is so good.”

“Yeah? Good, I’m glad you like it.”

“I haven’t had a meal this good in…I don’t know if I’ve ever had a meal this good.”

Dean grins in spite of himself.

“I’m really glad. I spent an embarrassing amount of time with this menu, I wanted it to be just right.”

“Well you nailed it,” Cas looks down at his clean plate, “If you weren’t here I would lick this clean.”

“Oh well, don’t let me stop you.”

Cas laughs again, settling into his chair and sighing contentedly, one hand on his stomach.

“I have a question for you.”

Dean’s eyes snap up to Cas’ face, where he’s analyzing his face. Dean can’t help but feel more than a little nervous.

“Shoot.”

“How did you learn to cook like this? You told me you moved around a lot and my brother isn’t even this good of a cook, and he started in our parent’s kitchen when he was three years old.”

Dean lets out a breath, holding in his answer. It’s not like he didn’t want to tell the truth, but he also didn’t want Cas to give him that look that people always did when he talked about his childhood. Pity. He hated pity and he didn’t want it, least of all from Cas. So he decides on one of those half truths that most people can’t pick out of a lie anyway.

“We did. My dad, he wasn’t around a lot, so it was down to me to cook for Sam, who’s a very picky eater, so I had to get creative a lot of the time, even if we just had a hot plate. I always liked doing it too, and so when I moved here and got a real kitchen that was pretty much all mine I really went crazy. I really just like to make stuff that I like, and like of course I’ll accommodate people if they have allergies or something, but if it tastes good to me, the happier I am cooking it.”

Cas gives him another one of those soft smiles, it looks the way a down pillow feels, and Dean wants to sink into it, but his dinner plans weren’t over yet, and he had sworn to himself that he would not, under any circumstances, jump Cas’ bones until they were well and truly done with dinner.

“You want dessert?”

Cas’ eyes widen a little, and Dean didn’t think about the innuendo but now he is and no no no it was pie time. Then…whatever else.

“Sure, if you’re having some.”

Dean cuts the pie with another one of Cas’ sharp knives.

“For someone that doesn’t cook you have a helluva knife collection.”

“A gift from my brother, he’s always trying to inspire me to cook.”

Dean puts each piece on a china plate, taking them over to the table.

“Trust me, this pie is like a religious experience. Blueberry is their best too.”

Cas starts making those noises of contentment and pleasure as soon as he starts eating the pie, and goddamn, Dean really wants to skip to the end of this chapter and fuck him already, but he holds it in, because he was romancing someone for the first time in his life and jumping headfirst into the deep end had only ever made him drown.

“What did I tell you?” Dean looks at Cas’ empty plate, the pie gone in record time.

“You have thoroughly changed me tonight. I may have to have you come over all the time, I’m not sure I can go back to microwaved meals after this.”

Dean's heart jolts a little at the idea that Cas wants him to come back, that they would do this again.

“Can I take these?” Dean gestures to Cas’ plates and Cas nods, smiling up at Dean as he takes their dishes to the sink in a neat stack, the cutlery clattering against the smooth metal of the deep basin. He thinks about washing them, and is just rolling up the sleeves of his flannel when he’s turned around by a forceful hand on his shoulder and Cas is kissing him, pressing him up against the counter, hands already sliding under the thin fabric of his t-shirt, fingers dancing up his sides, and Dean responds in kind, pressing his tongue into Cas’ mouth when it gasps open, pulling him forward by the hips, erasing any thought of space between them.

“Come to the bedroom?” Cas gasps as Dean peppers kisses down his neck, feeling his pulse thundering beneath the skin.

Cas goes a little slower, once they’re inside the dark bedroom, the only light coming from the glittering city around them, he takes his time. He pulls off Dean’s shirt, helps him shimmy out of his pants, pulls down his boxers agonizingly slow, and then Dean is left, all his skin exposed to the cool air, but instead of going right in, Cas examines his body, both the ink and the negative space. He starts at Dean’s left hand, dragging his fingers across his skin, tracing the semi-faded cross on his index finger, then the filigree on his middle finger, then the arrow on his ring finger.

“What are you doing?” Dean asks as Cas moves up to his forearm, the mountains and the twisting road, tracing the ink, pressing his mouth to the outline of the car and its taillights.

“I want to see you,” Cas replies, continuing up Dean’s arm to the geometric half-sleeve, done by Benny, mostly blackwork, with intricate designs, a thousand tiny details that Dean can still get lost in himself. Dean is struggling to breathe as Cas traces the pentagram encased by a sun on his chest, which is the only matching tattoo he has, he and Sam got them on Sam’s eighteenth birthday. 

“Cas, I-” Dean tries to stop him, because this was so intimate and even though he does not, under any circumstances want him to stop, he feels like they’re getting a little too close to something and Dean may need to jump out of this 40th story window if he’s not careful.

“Shh,” Cas quiets him, now kissing the roses and lilies on his right shoulder, “I want to know your details.”

Dean takes a shaky breath as Cas continues his delicate work, nose touching the blue rose Pamela had done for him, running his palm over the watercolor pond lily scene on the back of his forearm, inspired by Monet, his favorite painter. There’s more negative space on his right arm, the rose’s only partner the simple script from Vonnegut on his wrist “so it goes,” waiting to be filled when Dean gets the itch to get something else, but Cas continues on his journey of learning the constellations of Dean’s body, as reverent as a priest performing mass. Dean had never appreciated the phrase “your body is a temple” until Cas’s tongue was on his chest, tracing the perfectly detailed elephant on his upper stomach, teeth grazing the swallows on his hipbones.

He takes his time with Dean’s thighs, taking in every inch of the woman tattooed on the right, her face completely black save for her bright white eyes, standing in water, a spider crawling up her arm, and worships the ship caught in a violent storm, the hulking outline of a decrepit lighthouse visible in the shadows, and Dean feels like he’s losing his mind, fingers clenching around the feathery soft duvet.

Cas counts the scales on the snake wrapping around his right ankle, up towards his knee, and kisses his mother’s signature on his left foot. He even manages to suppress a noise of surprise at the full Adam West Batman figure Charlie did on his left leg, looking just as dorky and badass as he had always dreamed.

As Cas crawls his way up to kiss Dean, he leans into it, more than ready to proceed with the rest of the night, but Cas isn’t done yet.

“Lie on your stomach,” Cas whispers into his ear, more of an order than a request, and Dean complies, whining a little, earning him a light laugh from Cas, breath warm on his neck. He’s more than a little hard now, with all this attention being paid to him and he feels like his heart’s going to beat straight out of his chest. Cas bites lightly at the rose on his neck, traces the planets down his spine with feather light fingers, runs his tongue over the New York City skyline on his left side, and repeats the process with the perfect replica of the Impala’s engine on his right. Cas laughs at the sacred heart tramp stamp he has, and places a light smack on the smiley face he has on his right ass cheek, and the frowny face he has on his left (Dean has great taste in tattoos, thank you very much).

Cas learns every inch of Dean’s body, but not in a way that makes Dean want to shy away from him, the heat of his gaze is both warm and calming and sets his skin on fire, making him half twist around.

“Are you done examining me?” he asks, panting as Cas bites at the matching butterflies he has on the back of his knees.

“Are you incapable of being patient?” he asks quietly, pressing his chest flush with Dean’s back, and Dean can feel how hard he is and he wants it so bad he squeezes his eyes shut.

“Yes,” Dean whines, and Cas laughs, gently outlining the delicate numbers of Sam’s birthday on his left shoulder blade with his pinky finger.

“Fine,” Cas’s voice is like two octaves lower, and he slips a finger inside Dean, which is such a shock that Dean actually yelps.

“Mmm,” Cas hums, biting down on Dean’s shoulder harder now.

How does he know how to do that? He’s such a fucking expert Dean is a quivering mess in like two minutes, and he knows he won’t last long, so he flips over and pins Cas’s hands down with his own. Cas’s bright eyes are dilated, and he sucks in his breath as Dean pays the same attention to him that Cas did to Dean. He doesn’t have tattoos to trace, but there are birthmarks and freckles, divets in his skin, ribs and notches in the spine, a protruding collarbone and a bobbing Adam’s apple. Scars on his knees, a thin scar on his forehead. Dean learns them all, worshiping at Cas’s altar the way Cas did at his. Dean purposefully avoids Cas’s cock, until Cas is twisting underneath him, groaning and pulling Dean’s hair.

“Dean,” he hisses, trying to pull Dean up towards him, but Dean just bites the back of his knee and Cas does this jolt that makes Dean laugh aloud.

“This isn’t funny,” Cas says, “can you come up here already?”

“I’m just returning the favor. I want to see you too.”

Cas sighs and Dean grins as works his way back up the other side of Cas’s body, until he reaches his lips and Cas retakes control. He wraps his hand around both of their cocks, and Dean nearly blacks out when he starts moving in an excruciatingly slow rhythm, just barely enough, so Dean is moving underneath him, trying desperately to get more friction.

“Don’t be a bratty bottom,” Cas warns, a smile on his lips that Dean leans up to kiss the smirk off of his face.

“Cas,” Dean whines again, “please.”

Dean throws back his head into the pillows when Cas bites tenderly into his neck, still moving more slowly than Dean would like.

“What do you want, baby?” Cas positively purrs and, that’s it, Dean’s going to have a heart attack, “Do you want me to let you come?”

“Yes,” Dean snarls, and Cas laughs, picking up his pace.

Dean’s legs are starting to shake, and even despite the pace, he knew he wasn’t going to last long. He’s making noises that he doesn’t even recognize, they’re high pitched and desperate, and apparently it’s starting to get to Cas too.

“Fuck,” he whispers, biting on Dean’s throat now, moving in a rhythm that works for them both.

“You’re mouthy, more teeth than I expected,” Dean manages, still needing to sass Cas despite the fact that Cas has the power in the situation. And, of course, Cas stops the friction immediately.

“I can stop if you want,” he’s got a glint in his eye, and Dean is already moving, trying to get the movement going again.

“Cas, don’t stop,” Dean says, his voice catching in his throat, “I’m close.”

“Come on, then, baby. Come for me.”

And Dean does, the tightly coiled knot in his stomach coming undone with Cas’ deft movements, and he’s loud, louder than he usually is in bed, and it’s so good he swears he goes blind for a solid five minutes.

With some adjusting, Cas ends up behind Dean, propped up on pillows, wiggling so he and Dean could get under the duvet. They lay together for a while, not saying anything, a peaceful, quiet silence, broken only by their slowing breathing and the distant sounds of the city crawling forty stories below them, like a dream almost. Cas’ arms are wrapped around Dean, and he still feels like he’s in the clouds which, he sorta is. The minutes stretch on, and Dean doesn’t feel the overwhelming need to break the silence, because it’s easy with Cas, the sex is easy, the talking is easy, even the silence is easy, and, damn, Dean could get used to this.

“I’ve never had sex this good,” Dean sighs, breaking the silence after a while, playing with Cas’ hands.

“For the record, neither have I,” Cas is still holding him, twisting their hands together, he pauses a little before he continues, “you make me nervous.”

“Me?” Dean twists to look at him, “you’re the one that makes me nervous.”

“I guess we’ll just have to share, then,” Cas chuckles, leaning down to kiss him. It’s gentle, with less teeth and less ardor and less lust, but there’s something behind it that Dean has never really known, a little more than tenderness that he can’t quite put his finger on. Whatever it is, he likes it a lot.

“Will you stay the night?” Cas asks, an edge of nervousness to his voice, and Dean can’t help but smile, because he feels like he’s in middle school with a crush on someone, in that awkward phase where talking to them would mean certain death, so any interaction was stilted and weird, but he didn’t mind it. The crush phase was highly underrated.

“Yeah, if you’ll have me.”

“I’ve already had you, and I intend to have you again.”

Dean grins at that, kissing him again as he gets out of bed, stretching.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Cas asks, laying back on the pillows looking like a literal Adonis, with his messed up hair and those shoulders, those arms, those thighs, those eyes.

“Going to the bathroom, if that’s alright with you.”

Cas’s eyes travel up and down his naked body, even though there isn’t much light except the dim light from the living room and the city around them, these windows really were insane.

“I’ll allow it, as long as you come back looking exactly like that.”

Dean grins at him, feeling more relaxed than he has in a long time.

He catches sight of himself in the mirror in Cas’s bathroom and, for a moment, he doesn’t recognize himself. He recognizes the tattoos that Cas had just spent all those minutes paying attention to, he recognizes his lips, which are swollen and pink, and he recognizes his hair, which is sticking up in all directions, but there are marks that he doesn’t recognize. They’re purple and red and pink, outlines of teeth, the starts of bruises. “Love bites.” He had never understood the term before now, he had never been into biting or anything, he and Lisa were far from vanilla, but teeth were used sparingly, never enough to leave a mark. Even during hookups, it was an area he stayed away from, generally. But now? With all these marks covering his skin, from his thighs to his neck, he finally understood the appeal. He finds himself running his fingers over some of them, enjoying the slight pain the pressure he applied gave, each mark a memory, even though the night was far from over.

He had never felt like this, and it scared him, and kind of exhilarated him.

He comes back to the dark bedroom, his eyes taking a second to adjust as he turns on the bathroom light, but he’s so in tune with Cas he can see him despite the darkness of the room, and he crawls under the covers that Cas holds up for him.

“Glad to have you back.”

“Mmm,” Dean hums, burying his nose in Cas’s dark hair, which smells like sweat and come and the expensive shampoo Cas buys, “good to be back. I miss anything?”

“You mean in the two minutes you were in the bathroom? The governor stopped by to say hello.”

“Oh he did? Well, tell him to fix the MTA.”

Cas laughs, and the noise vibrates through the top of his head, going straight through Dean.

They slot themselves together, finding the perfect way to both be comfortable. Cas’s breath is warm on his neck, but Dean is damn tired, and he already feels his eyes getting heavy.

“Dean?”

Cas’ voice is gravelly and fuck he’s hot.

“Yeah?”

He feels Cas’s lips press into the joinder of his neck and shoulder.

“I’m very glad you decided to come over tonight.”

Dean snorts, arms tightening around Cas, pulling him as close as he could, so Cas’ face was pressed against his chest.

“Me too.”

“Your cooking is very good,” he continues, dragging his fingers slowly down the side of Dean’s neck, which, if Dean wasn’t so tired, would be enough to get him going again.

“Thank you, you fucking me is also very good,” Dean teases, earning a scoff from Cas.

“Don’t be a pig.”

“Pigs are some of nature’s smartest animals, I take it as a compliment.”

They fall asleep easily, mirroring each other’s breath, and Dean swears that it’s some of the best sleep he’s had in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao we back already. I'm p nervous posting this chapter but I'm also honestly really proud of it, so I would so love to know what you guys think! <3


	7. Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, I’ve had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. Do you know what surprised me the most? It wasn’t meeting them. It was meeting you.” - Arrival

Dean wakes up to sunlight streaming across the room in thick yellow beams. He opens his eyes, still bleary and stretches out his legs, immediately groaning as the stiff muscles protest at the movement. Cas is still curled around him, hands almost clenched around his forearms, making sure he didn’t go anywhere. He takes a minute to just appreciate sleeping Cas. His face was so relaxed, hair literally all over the place, long lashes making tiny shadows on his cheeks. He reminds Dean of those super-detailed marble statues, where you can see through the thinnest sheets of stone, the pinnacle of perfect details. Whoever made Cas sure knew what they were doing.

He pulls a hand free from under Cas’s ribs, and places it, feather light, to the side of his face. Cas stirs gently, but doesn’t wake up, not really.

“Morning sunshine,” Dean says, smiling at the bleary-eyed Cas who grunts and rubs a hand down his face.

“What time is it?”

Dean picks up the phone he had tossed on the bedside table the night before.

“Almost nine.”

“God,” Cas groans, rolling over and pulling the covers up over his head, “wake me up next week.”

“Why? Did I wear you out?”

Cas is clearly trying to ignore Dean, who begins kissing delicately down his bicep. Cas stills a little.

“You did, and now you’re trying to continue with that trend.”

“Kiss me.”

Cas turns to look at him, eyes a little wide, and then he obliges, and then he doesn’t seem so keen on sleeping anymore, instead crawling on top of Dean, two hands pressing him down into the sheets, still mussed from sleeping.

“Fuck, Cas,” Dean comes up for air, because lazy morning kisses were becoming less and less lazy and more and more heated by the second.

Before he can blink, Cas is between his legs, deft and delicate fingers making him achingly hard in seconds, preparing him for what he could already tell was going to be one of the better blowjobs of his life. Cas starts slow, tongue swirling over the head of his cock, drawing a weird sigh out of Dean, unlike any noise he usually made, and Cas just continues, wet mouth running up and down his cock, hollowed out cheeks taking it in, hands gripping Dean’s already shaking hips, but as soon as he gets close, really unbearably close, Cas stops, not cold, but changes or slows his rhythm so that Dean is on the edge of a knife, wanting to fall so bad he can hardly stand it, but really, he’s in the palm of Cas’ hand, and he’s playing right into it.

“God, please Cas, please,” Dean cries out, unable to hold back the torrent of sounds that want to escape his chest.

Cas lifts his head, mouth slick with spit and precum, and he smiles this feral smile at Dean that was almost enough alone to push Dean over the edge.

“I want you to come in my mouth,” he says, voice lower than usual.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Dean gasps as Cas starts on the perfect rhythm again.

Embarrassingly, it’s within seconds that Dean is coming, white hot, electric, in Cas’s mouth, and Cas smiles as he swallows all of Dean down, crawling back up towards him, kissing him, so Dean can taste himself on Cas’ tongue.

They lay there again, languidly kissing, as Dean’s own hands wander down towards Cas’ already hard cock. He likes to think he’s pretty good at this, as he moves his hand lightly over the head of Cas’ cock, and the way Cas throws his head back with a loud moan makes a self-satisfied grin spread over Dean’s face as he continues, playing Cas’ rhythm game on himself, changing it up right when he can feel Cas’ muscles go tense.

Cas is incoherent, making only high-pitched moaning noises and digging his nails into Dean’s arms, and Dean licks a long stripe up his neck, taking in the sweat beading there.

“Dean, please baby,” Cas chokes out as Dean changes the rhythm of his movements again. And Dean hums into Cas, the idea of him begging for his touch was a very intensely good thing.

He picks up the pace, and before he knows it, Cas was digging his fingers even harder into Dean’s skin and moaning so loud he thought it might alert the people on the street forty floors below.

They let themselves cool off for a while after, simply laying together, which it seems like they’re doing a lot of, which Dean is cool with.

Cas eventually stands up, stretching, and Dean can’t help but think that his personal view was better than anything outside the windows. Naked Cas in the morning sun, perfect skin, perfect shoulders, perfect _ass_, those bright blue eyes turning to look at him, still sprawling in bed.

“Come on,” he smiles, tossing Dean his boxers.

“Clothes? Ew.”

Cas laughs, pulling on the sweatpants he had discarded on the floor the night before.

“Can’t cook breakfast naked, can we?”

“Sure we can, just hand me an apron.”

Cas smiles, pulling his hand, padding into the kitchen and heading straight for the coffee maker.

“You make breakfast?” Dean asks, looking at Cas a little incredulously, “I thought you said you burned everything you touched in the kitchen.”

“Breakfast is different, it’s my specialty,” Cas grins, walking out of the bedroom, pulling Dean by the hand. Before they can get to the kitchen however, Dean sees something that makes him stop dead in his tracks. He sees a painting that he recognizes in the hallways of Cas’ bedroom. Black and white and red and familiar in its violence. The painting that Cas had seen him watching at the gallery opening all those weeks ago. _Apocalipsitora_. Cas is pulling insistently at his hand, clearly wanting his coffee, but Dean is cemented to the floor, caught up in the fact that that painting was here which must mean Cas bought it which must mean he thought of Dean when he looked at it. Dean suddenly wants to walk out the front door, never to be seen again, because Cas thinking about him when he took this painting home is terrifying.

“Dean? You still with me?”

“This…did you-” he’s stuttering, unable to find the words because Cas didn’t seem to get that this was a big fucking deal.

“From the gallery? Yes, I bought it myself. I find it compelling.”

“And you…I…”

“Dean, it’s a painting that I like. I thought you liked it too.”

“I do it’s just…” he pauses, because expressing his crippling self-doubt was a recipe for his own broken heart, so he stuffs the emotions he feels about the painting into a tiny box and smiles, “I do, it’s nothing.”

Cas eyes him suspiciously, but relents after a heartbeat, padding into the kitchen and heading straight for the coffee maker.

“You do this for all your hookups the morning after?” Dean teases, hoping very much that he actually didn’t.

Cas grins, handing Dean a mug of coffee and pulling out eggs, bacon, fucking pancake mix, oh hell yes.

“I don’t actually, don’t have many hookups, and certainly don’t bring them here.”

“Good to know I’m special.”

Cas rolls his eyes and get to work with the eggs, letting Dean sort out the bacon, which is just fine by him, since he’s a bacon snob and everything has to be just right, especially with this breakfast.

“You want music?” Cas asks from what seems like the other side of the world, since the island in his kitchen is so goddamn big.

“Yeah, surprise me.”

“Alexa, play my morning playlist.”

“Don’t you feel like you’re being watched when you have one of those in your house?” Dean asks as some pop-y song he doesn’t recognize plays on the surround sound speakers, bright and energetic.

“Well, I am an exhibitionist,” Cas says, wiggling his eyebrows at Dean, and Dean is pretty much unreachable for five minutes, doubled over the bacon he’s supposed to be cooking, laughing until tears are running down his face.

The playlist is a lot like Cas: completely unpredictable. Cas informs him that the first song is by Ariana Grande, and then there’s a slow folk song, some rock, some classic rock which Dean loves, rap, even some of that electronic pop that Pamela loves. Even though Dean rolls his eyes and groans every time some of the non-classic rock comes on, he finds himself really enjoying this. It’s domestic as hell, which he would not be at all comfortable with, especially on the first morning after, but, as usual, Cas is different, and he’s surprisingly okay, especially when Cas hands him a completely overflowing plate and leads him to the sofa. Dean’s a little afraid he might spill food on it, and resolves to eat like a human person, not a creature that Sam so often tells him he looks like when eating.

“What are we watching with breakfast, then?” Dean asks, settling down next to Cas with his amazing looking plate of breakfast food.

“You’re not allowed to leave.”

“Oh great, what is it?”

“I’m serious, _Arrival_ is one of my favorites.”

“You lured me here with sex so you could make me watch _Arrival_?”

“Wasn’t it obvious?”

“If you weren’t such a great lay I’d be walking out of here right now, in my boxers and everything.”

“Great way to keep me humble, thank you.

“I have to warn you, I’m a talker, I love to talk through movies, so tell me to shut the fuck up, I won’t take it personally.

“That’s fine, I like it when you’re vocal.”

Just like everything else Cas had introduced him to, _Arrival_ turns out to be absolutely amazing. Dean falls in love with everything about it, the music, the cinematography, even the tree aliens, he loves them so much. He refuses to call them Abbott and Costello, they’re the tree aliens and he would die for them. Cas has to pause the movie every five seconds because, as usual, Dean won’t shut up about it. It even makes him slow down eating, which is great because the eggs Cas made have green onions and cheese and bacon in them and they really are worth savoring.

“So who’s the kid then? Like why does she keep seeing this kid?”

“Wait and see, Dean.”

“Whatever.”

As the credits roll, Dean leans back into Cas’ white couch, looking at him.

“Whoa.”

“I told you, it’s amazing.”

“So the kid was-”

“Hers,” she was seeing all of time, because the Heptapods taught her their way of seeing time, their language.”

“Dude.”

“I told you.”

“And she chooses that anyway? Even though she knows?”

“Yes.”

“You have thoroughly rocked my world with that one. I told Sam he was a nerd for seeing it, I better beg for his forgiveness.”

“Glad I could oblige, anything else I can help you with today?” Cas asks as he puts their dishes in the sink.

“Well, I mean-” Dean wraps his arms around Cas’ stomach, which is warm through the thin, ratty t-shirt he’s wearing. He presses his lips to the side of his neck, and Cas shudders a little under his touch.

“You are insatiable.”

“Maybe so,” Dean’s hands wander down to the waistband of Cas’ boxers and Cas groans, looking at the time on the oven.

“Unfortunately, it’s my turn to blue-ball you.”

“Oh no no no, I don’t think so,” Dean says as soon as Cas pulls away. He chases after him, making grabby hands and Cas laughs as he lets himself be caught up again, and Dean goes straight to work, lips pressing into every inch of skin he can see.

“Dean, I have to go meet with a client in,” he looks at the clock again, “forty-five minutes. I have to get ready.”

“I can guarantee this won’t take longer than five minutes. How far away is the meeting?”

“Not far,” Cas gasps, hands already fisting in Dean’s hair, “ah fuck, Dean.”

Dean, like the absolute champion he is, drops to his knees right there on the kitchen floor and proceeds to give Cas what he hopes is a top five blowjob of his life. He thinks it must be pretty good, because it takes three minutes, not five, for Cas to grip the stone counter and come with a jolt in Dean’s mouth. Dean is grinning as he gets up, knees sore, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, washing his hands in the sink like he lives there, while Cas is still gripping the counter, frozen in place.

“I, I feel like I owe you for that.”

“Consider it payback for the show last week.”

“Are you paying for our first date with sex?”

“I told you when we met, I charge $400 an hour, so you’re getting off cheap.”

“Come here.”

Cas kisses Dean with a heat that Dean doesn’t expect.

“Usually people are satisfied after they get off.”

“Must just be you, then,” Cas breathes against his lips, biting Dean’s bottom lip.

“Don’t you have to go? I don’t want to make you late.”

“You make me not want to go at all.”

“Good, mission accomplished. But you should actually go.”

Cas kisses him, pushing his tongue into Dean’s mouth, and Dean could lean into it forever. Cas is the one to break the kiss, and he runs a hand through his hair.

“I do have to go to this meeting, but will you wait with me, I want to kiss you before I leave.”

“Yeah, yeah I will.”

Dean gets ready in like five minutes, picking up his discarded flannel from the living room, his jeans from the halfway across the bedroom, his t shirt from the floor by the bed, it’s like retracing the steps of last night, which Dean was pretty sure he wouldn’t need help with and would be doing often, alone in his room at night, that is. He peeks into the bathroom after lacing up his boots and sees Cas, dressed in a suit and tie, doing his best to cover a more obvious hickey Dean had left him with green concealer and foundation.

“You just have that on hand?”

“I do, my clients would not approve of this, though I wear as with a badge of honor.”

“Sorry man, I wouldn’t have done it if I knew you had a meeting today.”

“Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you,” Cas says, turning towards him, “see? Completely gone.”

“Holy shit,” Dean approaches him and examines where the mark had been just seconds before, “how’d you learn that?”

“My sister, actually. She taught me in high school.”

“Nice, I’ll have to pick that up.”

“Mmm, I’ll be happy to teach you,” Cas pulls him forward and kisses him again. God, Dean could so get used to this.

They walk to the door and go down the elevator together, and if they make out a little on the way down, no one needs to know about that but them.

They walk past the doorman and out into the brisk November air. Cas looks at him and Dean grins at him.

“So, thanks for…all that.”

“A wordsmith as usual,” Cas smiles, “I had a very good time. Text me when you get home.”

“Okay. You down for dinner sometime this week?”

“Don’t seem overeager.”

“Oh I am _eager_ to do that again.”

“As am I, and yes, of course, I’d love to have dinner with you. I’ll text you.”

“Cool,” Dean leans in to kiss him, and it takes more than he’d like to admit to break away.

“Goodbye Dean. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye Cas.”

They go their separate ways, and Dean turns around to catch a glimpse of the wind-swept jacket and the dark hair that he wishes he was still pulling in bed. Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I have worked way too hard this week and so here's another ~saucy~ chapter of the love of my life for you guys! I really really hope you enjoy, every comment, hit, and kudos really make me so happy, thank y'all so much!! :)


	8. Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I want the cottage. I want the green grass and the tomato plants. I want the peace in you; the front porch rocking chair lullaby; our cricket legs rubbing together under the covers. We can’t have it all. I know that, but humor me. We can’t have it all, but we can have most of it.” - Caitlyn Siehl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay FIRST AND FOREMOST we need to talk about this truly stunningly beautiful header made by @protectyourdarlings, it is literally so beyond amazing I can’t even believe it (as in I can’t look at it for too long or I start crying), thank you SO SO SO SO much and everyone should go follow right now immediately thanks, [check it out here!](https://theheartchoice.tumblr.com/post/190224534918/banner-lines-between-tattoos-au)

“You look like you’ve been walking on the moon for the last three hours,” Charlie says, looking Dean up and down as he bounces into the shop. Even though it’s his day off he has to see someone, and Sam had been gone when he got to the house.

“Three hours? Try twenty.”

“You spent the last twenty hours at his place?” Charlie’s jaw pretty much drops to the floor.

“Sure did, made him dinner and everything.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s all you’ve been doing all night,” Charlie scoffs, “so, how was he?”

“Fucking…unbelievable,” Dean says, thinking just how unbelievable the whole night actually was, about how Cas looked in the morning, how he looked at night, that little crease that formed between his eyebrows when he was thinking about something.

“Wow, Dean Winchester. One-night stand king. Looks to me like this guy might get another round with you.”

“Oh he definitely will,” Dean sighs, trying not to second guess how readily he said that. He rubs a hand down his face, suddenly achingly tired, “Jesus, C, you and me need to go out and talk about this because I’m sorta freaking out.”

“Duh, I get off at six, you and Sam still doing dinner? Can I crash?”

“Sure.”

Pamela and Benny kick Dean out of the shop not too long after, so Dean settles for a nice long walk around Dumbo, breathing in lungfuls of cold November air, occasionally attempting to wipe the stupid smile he’d had since that morning off of his face.

He’s not normally one to think he deserves good things. Hell, his life experience would generally tell him otherwise, the only good thing he’d ever done in his life was running the shop with his friends, but man, things with Cas were easy to fall face first into. He thinks about how scary it is that he’s so willing to spill his guts to Cas, how eager he is to do domestic shit with him, how much he wants to simultaneously fuck him and cuddle with him. He hasn’t felt that since he and Lisa broke up, and since…since Chicago…and that’s not a road he wants to go down again, no matter how much of it was his own doing.

His walk leads him to his favorite park, where he can sit and watch the water, watch the cars streaming in and out of the city, like ants working overtime to make their home the tallest it could be. He can still taste Cas on his lips, which makes the memory of the night before, of the last few hours as sharp as the knives in Cas’ kitchen, and Dean resolves not to think about it, to let himself just enjoy this little bit of happiness the universe is throwing his way. Granted, the resolve is easier thought about than acted upon. But, like, baby steps, right? Baby steps.

___________________

“So, how’d it go?” Sam asks over dinner, he and Charlie gazing at him with bright eyes as soon as the waiter brings their drinks over.

“Good. He’s cool.”

“Oh I don’t fucking think so,” Charlie rolls her eyes, “Details, Dean. We need details.”

Dean sighs, watching the people through the window of the restaurant walk by, wondering if any of them would ever experience a night like he had experienced with Cas the night before.

“It was so good it scared me a little. Like I didn’t wake up the next morning and want to leave. I wanted to stay there for, like, ever. That’s scary as hell.”

“But good right?”

“He,” Dean breaks off, not sure he can put the fear he’s feeling into words, because it was amazing, it was the best night he’d ever spent with someone, but… “he bought this painting, this one that we sort of met over, I guess. This painting that we both talked about and both liked and now it’s hanging in his hallway and it scares the shit out of me.”

“It’s a painting, Dean,” Charlie begins, but he’s cutting her off, not even letting her start.

“But it’s this, I don’t know, I can’t explain it. It makes me nervous.”

“Sounds to me like you had a great night and now you’re just making up excuses to seem like you didn’t.”

Both Charlie and Dean gape at Sam, unused to him being so blunt.

“Well said Sam,” Charlie smacks her hand on the table, ruffling the white cloth covering the plasticy wood.

“Yeah, okay maybe you’re right. He’s just,” _out of my league, I’m not worth his time, I’m afraid of how much I like him_, “I’m a little more into him than I expected.”

“Good. That’s a good thing, Dean.”

“Why are you so keen on this, I thought you and I were each other’s wingmen?” Dean stares at Charlie accusingly but she just picks up a piece of bread, supremely composed.

“Because, even though you’re insufferable ninety percent of the time, I want you to be happy, and the way you came in the door of the shop today screamed nothing but happy to me.”

Dean can’t look at her, because it’s such a nice thing, such a nice thing to feel as happy as he does right now, and he still afraid that that happiness will get taken away.

With a supreme effort he shakes off the feeling of Cas’ hands on his arms and Cas’ lips on his neck and that fucking painting on his wall.

“So what the hell? Let’s not just talk about my weird neuroses about my love life, what’s going on with yours?”

“Nothing, as usual,” Charlie sighs, staring wistfully into space, “I met up with that girl from the Halloween party, but there wasn’t really anything there. No spark.”

Dean definitely doesn’t think about the literal fire between him and Cas.

“Well,” Sam starts, looking a little embarrassed, “that’s kinda what I wanted to talk about tonight.”

“_You met someone_?!” Dean and Charlie exclaim together, drawing stares from the people around them, and Sam flaps his hands, trying to get them to be quiet.

“It’s _very_ new, but yeah, yeah I did.”

“When the hell did this happen? Where have I been? Was it at work?”

“What? No, no, pretty sure the average age at the firm is 62. We, um, well…” Sam trails off, looking embarrassed again, “We met at this club I’ve been going to.”

Dean raises his eyebrows, Charlie looks similarly astonished.

“You’ve been going to a club? By yourself?” she asks, putting a hand to his forehead, “Are you okay?”

“Not that kind of club. It’s a group I joined a few weeks back. You guys work on Saturdays and I didn’t have anything to do so I just thought, you know, what the hell? And it’s been really fun and-”

“What’s the club?”

“Don’t laugh. Especially you Dean.”

Dean raises his hand in the air, crosses his heart.

“Swear I won’t laugh, scout’s honor.”

“It’s, um, it’s a botany club in Central Park. We go out and study the local plant life, talk about it. It’s fun.”

Dean really has some of the best self-restraint in the world, because it takes pretty much everything in him not to laugh, because it’s so nerdy and so Sam to spend his Saturday mornings with a botany club, studying plants in Central Park.

“Well, what’s her name? What’s she like?”

“Eileen Leahy. She’s actually in law school at Columbia. She’s so smart and so funny and she’s teaching me sign language too.”

“Sign language?”

“Yeah, she’s deaf, so she’s teaching me some basics and I picked up this online course a couple weeks back because I don’t want to spend all our time with her teaching me, you know?” Sam pauses, a smile spreading across his face, “I really really like her, and I want you guys to meet her, but I don’t want to rush into anything, so maybe in a couple of weeks if that’s okay. Like thanksgiving maybe?”

“That’s really great Sam,” Charlie grips his arm, smiling brightly up at him.

“Yeah, whenever you’re ready to bring her by we’d love to meet her. I’m happy for you.”

Sam is radiating happiness, warming everything around him, a little mini star burning bright in front of them. Dean hasn’t seen him this happy since he graduated, and he’s always thrilled with anything that makes Sam this happy.

The rest of their evening is filled with good food (this new Italian place is definitely going to be in their regular rotation), laughter, and probably a little too much wine. Charlie, as usual, comes back to the apartment with them, whining about her apartment being too far away and too cold, not that she ever had to convince them to let her come crash on their couch.

“Dean,” Charlie whispers as Sam snores in his chair, he looks over at her, and he could tell that he was going to spill his guts to whatever she asked.

“Yeah?”

“How was the date, really?”

“It was…unbelievable. I’m serious Charlie, I’ve never had sex that good, ever. Everything’s just…easy with him, I guess. Like I don’t feel a pressure to perform, and I don’t feel like I have to hide anything, like my tattoos. He,” Dean thinks about Cas studying him the night before, taking in his details, tracing him like he was ink on paper, “he sees me, I guess.”

Charlie looks softly at him, something he can’t read in her face. He doesn’t want to think about it, he just wants to see Cas again. He picks up his phone absentmindedly, swiping until his messages with Cas pop up.

_What would you say if I said I was thinking about you?_

This was so fucking girly, Dean thinks, running his thumb over the screen as Charlie smirks at him.

“What?”

“Nothing, just a little more soft than I’m used to seeing you with people.”

“Yeah. Everything about this feels different.”

His phone vibrates. He cricks his neck looking too fast and Charlie laughs at him, half watching him and half watching the dumb rom com they have on.

_That I’m also thinking about you_.

A shiver runs down Dean’s body that has nothing to do with the temperature in the room. The idea of Cas, wherever he was, thinking about him was more than he wanted to think about, especially with Charlie six inches from him. Shy he was not, but sexting right next to his best friend was a little too much of a boundary push. 

_Good, that’s the answer I wanted._

They finish the dumb Netflix original rom com and Dean gets Charlie a blanket and a pillow, and she curls up on the couch. He kisses the top of her head as he pads to his room, and she calls after him,

“Don’t let Cas keep you up too late.”

“Whatever. Goodnight.”

_I’m glad I can oblige. Do you want to come see me at the gallery later this week?_

Dean brushes his teeth, looking at the marks Cas left on him in the mirror, maybe he’ll invest in some of that green concealer. What foundation shade would he be? He’d have to ask Charlie.

_Yeah, do I need to bring a tuxedo?_

He closes the door to his room, three-pointing his shirt into his laundry hamper from across the room and putting on his favorite hot dog pajama pants Sam got him as a gag gift two years ago. He was glad it was finally cold enough out for them. 

_No, just bring yourself and some more of that pie if you can. What you left here won’t last._

He pulls on a ragged Stanford sweatshirt and falls into bed, feeling warm and cozy and more content than worried now, even though the worry still scratched at the back of his mind. He reminds himself of the promise he made himself, that he made Pamela: just go with the flow. Too bad he always liked to go against the current.

_Can’t wait._

The next few weeks, Dean finds himself tumbling headfirst down the tunnel that is Castiel. They see more of each other all the time, finding any excuse to meet for coffee, crisscrossing the city to find each other, knowing the Subway lines to their respective apartments better than the backs of their hands. Dean is always careful, however, to make sure that his place was going to be empty before he and Cas got there. They weren’t, or he wasn’t, ready for the people in his two vastly different worlds to meet yet. 

Their dates can be as simple as a five minute lunch break when Dean comes up for air at the shop, Cas rubbing his tried, cramped, ink-stained hands, to as romantic as meeting at the empty gallery that Cas still has a key to, dancing to folk songs in the softly lit open area, holding onto each other with a gentleness that Dean has never known.

Dean finds himself being more honest with Cas than he’s been with anyone in a long, long time, and every time he opens his mouth, whether it’s in the middle of a crowded street on their way to the theatre, or at night while he’s pulling Cas’ hair, thrown back into the pillows, he’s afraid that he’s finally going to say the thing that will make Cas take his heart and run. Cas sees that, he knows he does, and he pushes Dean to be more honest, but Dean doesn’t do this, he doesn’t do long term and he doesn’t do honesty or touchy-feely even though a big part of him would really like to, so he continues with his sidesteps and his half-truths, hoping Cas will just drop it and that’ll be the end of it.

“Can I ask you something?” the question Dean unequivocally hates more than any other (well, maybe not as much as “are you flexible on price?” because that’s just disrespectful) comes from Cas one evening in Dean’s bedroom (Sam and Charlie have caught a late movie and are crashing at Charlie’s, so Cas is spending a rare night at Dean’s, which always makes Dean’s heart flutter in that weird way), where Dean’s been hit with inspiration and is sketching at his desk, ink of his pens covering his hands, while Cas plays Candy Crush idly on his phone, laying on Dean’s bed with his feet propped up, socked feet crossed, breathing easy.

“Sure.”

“It’s a little bit weird or, out of left field, but I’ve been thinking about it and I’d like to know.”

Dean is getting more and more keyed up the more Cas talks. This seems like it’s going to be one of those questions that seems simple and then backs him into a corner so he can’t run, he just has to hunch down and take what’s coming to him until it lets up.

“Why are you afraid of getting too close to me?”

The words hit Dean like a ton of bricks, and he’s frozen, like a deer in headlights, not breathing, not moving, pen held above his paper, not even able to look over at Cas. He couldn’t face the judgement.

“You can be honest with me,” Cas’ hand slides, warm and solid onto his shoulder and Dean jumps, so caught up in the feeling that he’s drowning, invisible water filling his lungs, dragging him down that he almost forgot Cas was even there.

He can be honest with Cas, hell, he’s been more honest with Cas about random shit in his life than he had been with anyone he put his dick near in years, so he guessed he kinda owed it to the guy to sort of explain just how fucked over he had been and how…not eager he was to do that again.

“I was in this thing. I met her right when I got here, she worked at this yoga studio down the street of the shop, and I passed by there all the time. Even pretended to be interested in yoga if you can believe that. We just had this…spark I guess. I was so nervous when I asked her out, because we’d been ‘seeing’ each other for like four months but hadn’t gone on an actual date, so I finally asked her out and I thought my heart was gonna fall out of my ass, you know? We were literally inseparable, did everything together. And like, three months into the actual relationship I found out she had a kid, and damn if he wasn’t the most amazing kid I ever met. Name’s Ben. He’d be like twelve, thirteen now. Jeez. Seriously, we were together for two years, maybe two and a half, and I thought I was going to marry her. Even started looking at rings, which she knew about. And then she tells me she’s got this job opportunity in San Diego, perfect for her, exactly what she wants. And so I say great, let’s start looking at places. And she drops the bomb, you know, the big ‘I think we should take a break’ bomb. I asked her why, why now, and she says she found someone else more…respectable I think was the word she used. And I don’t blame her, it was probably better for her and Ben. I mean, look at me, I’m not exactly husband material.”

“That’s not true,” Cas looks at Dean so intently that Dean thinks he might actually keel over.

“Yeah. Well. She and Ben moved and I didn’t, and so I just don’t do relationships anymore.”

He doesn’t say anything about his other big hangup, who’s still in Chicago with light blue eyes, lighter than Cas’, long hair, and tattoos on his body that Dean gave him. But, that wasn’t really a relationship anyway. That was something undefinable, something that Dean would tell Cas about, but not tonight. Definitely not tonight.

Dean still can’t look at Cas, he’s too afraid of the expression on his face, of the judgement there, or the pity, or even the lack of expression. He had no idea what he wanted when it came to Cas, but he just knew that he didn’t want him to leave, and he was afraid that him not wanting to _commit_ or _date_ would scare Cas off. But he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t ready to give away his heart like that yet, even though, a lot of times with Cas, it felt like it had been taken out of his hands already.

Cas slides his hands down Dean’s chest, wrapping him up in arms that are too easy to lean into, too easy to fall in love with.

“I get it.”

“You…what?”

“Makes sense that you wouldn’t want to jump into anything after that.”

Dean twists around and stares at him.

“I thought this would like, scare you off. My big bad breakup or whatever.”

Cas has that soft smile on his face that makes Dean go weak at the knees.

“Are there any other types of breakup except bad? I’m just glad you told me, I was worried it had something to do with me.”

Dean has to fight back a laugh at that, because Cas is just so goddamn perfect he’s afraid of touching him with ink staining his fingers, and he leans in and kisses him, slowly, gently, in a way that he hasn’t allowed himself to since part of his heart got taken to San Diego without him attached. Cas responds, and it’s one of those kisses that doesn’t need to lead to anything else. It just is. Simple, soft, brief, replacing the burning fire with something less easily definable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof I am STILL not over last night's episode so here's some AU nonsense to brighten everyone's day. As always, I'd love to know what you guys think! <3


	9. Thanksgiving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I will say that meeting him was like walking out of a dark wood. He's not perfect and I'm not perfect and we have our hard times but I remember moving towards him through Terminal 4 and it was like emerging from the cold and into the sun.  
Like waking up from the bad dream that was my life before him.  
And all the confusion and fear and self-hatred that I'd always felt in the presence of other people...  
I was shedding it like a skin.  
The spell had ended.  
And I remember thinking: everything is possible.  
If this is possible, anything is possible.”  
― Annie Baker, John

Thanksgiving approaches too quickly, and Dean is trying to plan a menu that not only accommodates Sam and Charlie’s allergies, but is good enough to impress Eileen, the girl that Sam talks about almost as much as Dean talks about Cas. He wheedles Sam until he tells him exactly what her favorite kind of pie is, what kind of vegetables she likes best, whether she wants homemade cranberry sauce or canned. He drags Cas along for his extended grocery shopping trip the Sunday before thanksgiving, and Cas distracts him when he gets into an anxiety hole, something Dean is eternally grateful for.

“Are you making the pie, or buying?”

“Buying, I’m not much of a baker, and that bakery makes better pie than I ever could. Turkey though, I make a mean thanksgiving turkey.”

“I’m sure you do, you’ll have to save me some.”

“Fuck, they’re out of cayenne,” Dean panics for a moment before a bottle appears in his hand, “Thanks Cas.”

“You are so keyed up, what’s going on?” Cas runs a hand through his hair, a simple gesture that grounds Dean, makes him take a breath, breathing slowly and deeply, trying not to absolutely freak the fuck out over this thanksgiving dinner.

“It’s just that this is the first girl that Sam’s brought home and I want to make sure that this is all just right, did I tell you I’m learning some sign language? I just want her to feel comfortable around us and I don’t want to mess this up for Sam because I feel like I’m always messing things up and I really want this to go right and-”

Cas puts a hand over Dean’s babbling mouth, silencing him with delicate fingers.

“Dean, take a breath, huh?”

Dean does so, taking another long breath through his nose, and Cas eyes are calming, telling him, without words, that things were going to be okay, and Dean finds himself believing that, because he’ll believe anything when it comes to Cas.

“She’s gonna love it. She’s gonna love you, who wouldn’t? And since when are you messing everything up? That doesn’t sound like you.”

Uh oh, they were doing that thing they do, that thing where they get a little too close to the shit that Dean is ashamed of, of the thing that will make Cas walk out the door, and he’s not ready to let go of Cas just let, so he avoids, just like he always does. It’s easier than being honest about himself.

“I just, I want it to be perfect, you know?”

Cas runs a hand down Dean’s face, gently smoothing away the wrinkles of worry and doubt in his forehead, still working on those in his heart.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be true to you, which it will be. You’re a great cook and a great host.”

“But I won’t win Eileen over with sex, the food has to be good on its own.”

Cas laughs, throwing back his head the way that Dean loves.

“Your cooking was enough to win you over with me, but I was lucky that you didn’t stop there. Now, what else is on your list?”

Dean gets a little lost in his thoughts for the rest of the shopping trip, skimming up and down the aisles, bickering with Cas about what brand of sliced bread is best, because they’re at that point, apparently. He thinks about how Cas is one of the only people on earth, barring Sam, that can calm him down when he almost gets drowned by anxiety and doubt. He’s never had anyone that can just, cover his mouth with their hands and make him listen, make him see what was real and what his mind created, like lighting up a maze, helping him find his way out. He was realizing, the more time he spends with Cas, the more he bickers with him, the more he hears him cry out his name in bed, the more he feels like this is less of a long term hookup and more of a relationship. That’s scary as hell, but there’s almost a comfort there, even though he had told himself that he was not going to get into another thing, not after Lisa.

The walk back to Dean’s apartment is peaceful, even though they’re weighed down by thirty pounds of food in the canvas bags that Sam makes Dean carry with him when he goes grocery shopping, save the planet and all that jazz. Dean’s putting off the inevitable goodbye to Cas as it inches closer, the seconds ticking towards his flight time and making Dean resent his favorite holiday a little bit.

He kisses Cas at the door to his apartment, long and slow since they won’t see each other for a week; Cas’ siblings are taking a group trip to visit their cousins in Los Angeles and Dean tries not to be clingy when he sets the grocery bags down inside the apartment and turns to Cas so he can keep kissing him, a little part of him hoping that maybe, if he’s a good enough kisser, Cas will cancel his trip and stay with Dean. It’s ridiculous, he knows that, but he was becoming pretty ridiculous when it came to Cas.

“Dean, I have to go, my flight leaves in four hours and I have to get home and pack.”

Dean responds by kissing him again, pulling him close, learning and relearning the geography of Cas’ mouth.

“Dean, come on baby.”

Dean pulls back, the words jolting him out of his mission to get Cas to stay and miss his flight.

“I thought you only called me baby in bed?”

“Well, it got you to stop,” Cas runs his thumb along Dean’s bottom lip so it’s not a rebuke, not really. Cas presses a delicate, barely there kiss to the side of his mouth, and Dean responds in the way all adults should: he rolls his eyes and sighs, stamping his feet on the ground like the little kid that he is. Cas laughs at him.

“It’s not like we won’t communicate. I’ll text you.”

“Please. Also I wouldn’t be mad at you if you called.”

Cas smiles this soft little smile and Dean’s heart grows a size every time he sees it. Cas kisses him on the cheek.

“Hey,” Dean catches Cas’ hands as Cas turns away, trying to walk towards the street.

“Hmm?” Cas runs his hands through Dean’s hair again, making him sigh and lean into his touch. He knew it was only for a week, but he was selfish by nature, and he was really desperately going to miss this.

“We’re together, right? Like, _together_ together?”

Dean expects Cas’ eyes to read pity, or anger, or shame, anything negative, because how could he be so stupid as to think that Cas would actually want to date someone like him? What he does not expect is for Cas to smile this smile, the one he saw the morning after Dean had spent the night, and Dean’s chest suddenly feels all warm and bubbly.

“I was really hoping so.”

“Good. I- Good.”

Cas doesn’t say anything else, but just pulls him closer, wrapping him in this hug, the kind of hug he hasn’t had since he was a kid. There were no other expectations to it, it wasn’t going to lead to anything else, just the feeling of Cas solidly against him, holding him in place, not wanting to go anywhere, find someone better, that was enough to get Dean through the week.

When they break apart, Dean feels like he’s ten inches taller, standing strong in this assurance from Cas.

“Goodbye Dean, I’ll see you soon.”

Dean kisses him, lightly this time, not as hungry.

“I’ll miss you.”

“And I you.”

Cas walking away hurts more than it should, but Dean has work to do, so with the knowledge that he and Cas were really together like that, he bounds into the house and starts peeling potatoes like his life depends on it.

Sam comes home that night with a smirk on his face as Dean is wrestling a turkey that, though dead, is stronger than him.

“You gonna lose a fight to a turkey.”

“She’s, hoo, stronger than she looks,” Dean’s out of breath, putting his hands on his knees as Sam laughs at him, tossing his keys into the little dish by the door,

“How’d grocery shopping go? Cas keep you from losing your mind?”

“Only about fifteen times. We’re, um, officially dating by the way.”

Sam looks at him, surprised, probably because Dean had sworn off dating forever after he and Lisa had split up.

“That’s great Dean, when the hell are we going to officially meet him?”

“I was thinking maybe we could all go to dinner together sometime? Maybe after work and me and Charlie close down the shop?”

“Duh, can’t wait to meet him.”

Dean wakes up at the crack of dawn the next morning and immediately heads to the kitchen, cracking his knuckles and making a strong pot of coffee. Thanksgiving was a marathon, not a sprint, and he needed to be energized to make the ten-thousand course meal he was planning. Listen, he had to pull out every stop known to man so they could impress Eileen, and he wasn’t about to start slacking.

Sam drags himself out of bed at around nine, lured to the kitchen by the smell of sautéing onions and carrots on the stove, and Dean immediately puts a spatula in his hand and orders him to not let the veggies burn.

“You’re bossy this morning.”

“Need I remind you that we have one chance to make a good impression on Eileen? This is no time to burn the vegetables, Sam.”

“Okay, okay, no burned vegetables.”

Not a minute later, Charlie kicks open the door with two six packs of Dean’s favorite beer and wearing the Pikachu onesie she designated for holidays and celebrations.

“Sup bitches,” she grins, sniffing the air, “Damn, it already smells amazing, good thing I got a tape worm last week.”

“You’re not wearing that to dinner!” Sam’s face is slightly panicked as he points at Charlie with a half-peeled carrot.

“Well hello to you too, Sam,” Charlie sets the bottles down on the coffee table and launches her shoes into the corner.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m just, you know, nervous I guess.”

“Well don’t worry about little old me, I’ve got a ballgown under this thing.”

“False,” Dean calls from his station by the oven, where he’s watching his cornbread dressing with an eagle eye, searching for golden brown perfection, “You are absolutely wearing Winnie the Pooh fuzzy pajamas and that Guns N Roses t shirt you stole from me two years ago under that thing.”

“Okay Dean, no need to call me out,” Charlie laughs as Sam’s face turns white, “Don’t freak out Sam, I have a change of clothes with actual pants, but from what you’ve said about Eileen, I don’t think she’d care.”

“She wouldn’t, but I do.”

Sam looks a little small there, eyes a little downcast, and so Charlie and Dean converge on him immediately, Charlie immediately wrapping Sam in a hug, Dean clapping his shoulders.

“We get it, we’re just poking fun,” Charlie starts, and Dean continues,

“We won’t be weird, Sammy. She’s important to you and that’s what matters, yeah?”

Sam smiles a little wider now, tension visibly bleeding out of his shoulders.

“Thanks guys, I really do appreciate it.”

Dean’s yearly tradition is to get absolutely shitfaced during thanksgiving, watch the Parade and the National Dog Show, and then cook semi drunk and be hungover by 5pm. A beautiful tradition really, one that he and Charlie took very seriously, but Sam had bitched at them so much about being respectable at their first dinner with Eileen that they had been forced to reign it in, only finishing three beers a piece and correctly picking the Bulldog as the winner of the show.

Eileen shows up around two, smiling shyly and carrying a bottle of wine and a container of roasted carrots that Dean wants to polish off in about ten seconds.

“Hi Sam,” Eileen has this really awesomely adorable smile and goes straight for Sam the second she put her stuff down, the size difference is hilarious, Sam is literally like a foot and a half taller than her, but it’s so sweet and Sam is so so so happy that Dean turns a little red and puts Eileen’s carrots carefully in the kitchen.

Eileen hugs him too, and Charlie, and when Dean does some of the sign language he’s been practicing, she corrects him easily and gently, deft hands moving slow enough for his clumsy ones to catch up, and he loves her immediately, especially because she’s whip smart and sasses as good as any of them.

Sam and Dean pull out the crappy folding table Dean bought at a garage sale two years before, because who the hell has room for a dining table? Well, Cas does, but he also lives in a ten million dollar apartment on Park Avenue, so there’s that. They throw a gingham checked tablecloth over it, Charlie produces a candle from one of the cabinets that Dean didn’t even realize they had, and Dean insists on breaking out the “good plates,” which just meant they weren’t chipped and cracked and permanently kinda stained from the ten years of use and abuse in the kitchens Dean had lived in for the last decade.

It’s really one of the better thanksgivings they’ve ever had, Eileen fits in seamlessly, and Dean and Charlie eat so much food that they have to lie on the floor for thirty minutes after their third helping, Charlie sticking her arms in the air, having read in some magazine that that helps the food digest faster.

“You two look ridiculous,” Sam says from the couch, where he and Eileen were watching _A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving_, turning up the volume every time Dean groans from the floor.

“Shut up. This is it, I’m going to die. I had a good run, but my stomach’s going to explode and I’ll be plastered all over the walls.”

“Ew,” Eileen says, not taking her eyes off Linus and Charlie on the screen.

Dean’s stomach lurches again, and he clutches it and groans, Sam side-eyeing him.

“Sorry about this Eileen, I wish I could say it’s usually different, but it’s not,” Dean says, curled in the fetal position for some relief.

“That’s okay, I don’t mind,” Eileen takes Sam’s hand and Dean, despite the fact that he does, in fact, feel like he wants to die, smiles.

After his stomach settles and he doesn’t feel like he’s going to puke if he moves, Dean crawls his way into Sam’s chair and check his phone, only half paying attention to the football game that he made Sam put on. 

_How’s LA? Horribly boring and awful I hope._

Dean feels almost guilty when his heart jolts seeing the little dots, confirming Cas was typing. He waits, breath held.

_Is it going to hurt your feelings if I say it isn’t?_

_Yes._

He waits.

_Would it make you feel any better if I said I miss you terribly?_

He smiles at his phone like a teenager, wondering if Cas was doing the same, sitting in some lavish mansion with his family, on some way too white couch with some subpar food and thinking about Dean from the other coast, looking at the other ocean.

_…yes._

_Good, because I do._

Dean’s jerked out of his happy little texting bubble by Sam yelling at the TV, and, with a supreme effort, Dean pulls himself out of being consumed by Cas, which he usually was anyway and focuses on the game in front of him, and if, that night, he rereads the texts from Cas over and over and over again, until he can see the words when he closes his eyes, that’s just between him and no one else.

His dreams don’t share his peaceful frame of mind, however.

He dreams of that painting again, the one that hangs in Cas’ hallway, and this time he sees more of the monster, with its deformed, shifting face, black holes for eyes, a gaping mouth, stretching down to rip him to pieces, screaming at him, showing him, torn and bleeding, that even here, in death, that he wasn’t worth the ground he was laying on. He tries to breathe, tries to cry out, and he sees a solider, one that’s higher up in the rankings than him, standing there, and why does he look familiar? Why isn’t he helping Dean? Why is he standing there, letting him get crushed?

Dean wakes up gasping again, and this time, he remembers the dream, and it takes him until pale, minty light is creeping through his windows to fall asleep again, the screaming, keening cries of the monster still echoing in his ears.

____________________________

When Cas comes back a week later, Dean unashamedly takes the day off of work and takes the Impala to pick him up at JFK, even paying for parking because he was a desperate bitch when it came to Cas and wanted to see him as soon as he stepped off that plane.

He doesn’t like airports. Not only does he hate flying, but the crowds and the air of stress and desperation coming out of the place made him feel like he needed to crawl out of his skin and live under a lake where there were no flying metal tubes that could crash at any second. He pushes all this from his mind, however, and hangs out at the bottom of the escalator, watching people reunite, or business people walking, exhausted towards the exit, clutching only shiny briefcases. A little girl went running full tilt towards her grandparents, yelling with joy. 

Dean checks his watch and looks up at the arrival board, Cas’ plane had landed a few minutes before, he should be coming any time, especially since he had told Dean he liked to be in the front rows, always with a window, “I like the look of the world from up there,” he had said, laughing when Dean made a gagging noise.

Dean looks up, and at the top of the escalator, hair flat from a full day of travel, wearing sweatpants and his usual long trench coat stands Cas. He sees Dean and a grin spreads across his face, and when he gets to the bottom of the stairs, Dean wastes no time, bridging the distance between them, wrapping Cas in a hug that would probably crush his ribs, and Cas responds in kind, holding Dean, and Dean hadn’t really realized how much he missed Cas, even though he’d only been gone a week.

“Missed you,” Dean breathes in the smell of Cas’ hair.

“And I you,” Cas leans up and gives him a brief kiss, which immediately leaves Dean wanting more, “How was your thanksgiving?”

“Fine, ate way too much, me and Charlie finally met Eileen. She’s great. How about you? Where’re your siblings?”

“They’re all staying a few more days, but I have some business to attend to so I came back early,” Cas leads the way over to the baggage carousel, looking for his suitcase.

“I hope that that business doesn’t have to do with work and has everything to do with me.”

Cas smiles, picking up his bag, heading toward the exit, Dean following along, jangling his car keys.

“I have some ideas.”

“Well Sam’s at work, we’ll have the place to ourselves if you’re down to come to mine.”

Cas looks at him, hungry and wild and Dean basically breaks into a dead sprint to get to the Impala, pulling Cas along, who’s laughing and dragging his bag behind him.

“Wow,” Cas’ eyes widen when he sees the car, shiny and black and an absolute lady killer. She’s Dean’s pride and joy, given to him by his father when he turned eighteen. His friends had tried, without any success to get him to sell her when he moved to the city, and he spent about half his rent paying to park her, but for moments like this, where Cas’ eyes are wide, it’s worth it. Dean opens the door for Cas, slamming it closed when Cas climbs in and throws his suitcase in the trunk.

“This is a hell of a car, Dean.”

“You like her? She’s my pride and joy. I pay way too much to park her, but I’ll never sell her.”

Cas runs a hand lightly over the seat, perfect leather upholstery that Dean has replaced twice in his life, spending hours making sure the placement was right each time.

“It’s beautiful,” Cas whispers, his eyes flicking towards the backseat and his tongue wetting his bottom lip. The meaning there was something that Dean did not miss.

“One day you and me’ll take a road trip upstate, see the country or something.”

“Oh yes…I’d like that.”

Dean’s body starts to tingle in that tell-tale way, and he throws the Impala in reverse, doing his best not to speed back to the city. Not that that was possible, traffic was always the worst, even on a weekday afternoon. But it doesn’t matter, Dean pops in _Physical Graffiti_ to pass the time, the familiar sounds of “Custard Pie” drifting from the speakers.

“What’s this?”

Dean nearly rear-ends the cab in front of him and has to slam on the brakes, jolting them both forward.

“Dean!”

“You don’t know this album?”

“No? Should I?”

“You’ve never listened to Physical Graffiti? By Led Zeppelin?”

Cas pauses, looking almost a little guilty.

“Is this where ‘Kashmir’ is from? Because I looked up that song after we met. It’s good, I like it.”

Dean ignores the little jolt in his heart when Cas says he looked up Kashmir because of him, but instead looks over at him, shaking his head.

“Well there go our afternoon plans. I’m educating you on Led Zeppelin.”

“That’s fine, but we aren’t cancelling our plans, I need you to dick me down at least three times today.”

Dean chokes and starts to laugh. 

“Now that I can do, but we’re doing it to Led Zeppelin.”

“Such a romantic,” Cas pauses, and Dean can feel his eyes on him, “If it weren’t a crime, I’d be giving you road head right now, you look hot behind the wheel.”

Dean blushes, his cheeks burning in the cold December air, and when Cas’ hand finds its way to his knee, then his thigh, Dean shifts, eyes staring towards the towering mass of buildings in front of him.

“You’re going to make me wreck this car, and I’ll have to actually murder you if you do that.”

“Fine, I’ll keep my hands to myself, then,” Cas sits back in his seat, and Dean misses the contact immediately.

The garage he parks the Impala in is close to his and Sam’s apartment, which is a blessing, since Cas is getting handsy again the second they hit the sidewalk, and it takes all of Dean’s willpower not to drag him into an alley in the middle of the day.

Dean unlocks his door and Cas immediately sheds his jacket, Dean kicking off his shoes and searching, half desperately for Cas’ mouth. 

Dean’s the one to break the kiss, and he turns towards his record player, putting on Led Zeppelin II as Cas sighs impatiently.

“Can you calm down?” Dean asks, turning around to grin at Cas.

“No,” Cas pushes him onto the couch as soon as he finishes and the album starts to play, not taking in any details of the apartment, he has eyes only for Dean. Dean feels hot all over, like a week has been a year, like he’s starving for Cas’ touch, and Cas only gives it to him in skittering touches under his shirt, chuckling when Dean arches up, wanting more.

“I thought you were educating me on Zeppelin,” Cas breathes, kissing Dean’s neck.

“We are, but we can do that while I fuck you.”

It’s messy and loud and not at all romantic, but fucking Cas on the couch when Zeppelin played gently in the corner was something that made Dean feel a little but high for several days after, thinking of Cas’ vibrating throat, the way they came, fittingly, to “Whole Lotta Love,” half clothed, wild, reckless, not caring if anyone came through the door.

“Fuck,” Dean sighs, laying back on the couch, after pulling up his pants in an extremely dignified way, thank you very much.

“I missed you,” Cas presses a light kiss to his jaw, sitting up and looking around.

Dean scoffs, looking up at Cas from his position on the couch. God, he’s like something out of _Vogue_. Not that Dean’s looked at _Vogue_, shut up.

“Let’s go to your room.”

Dean raises his eyebrows.

“Another round already? Damn.”

“What can I say, I’m eager to get you naked.”

“It’s not, uh, like, clean.”

“God Dean, I want to fuck you, not clean your goddamn room, can we move along?”

“You’re bossy today.”

“I haven’t gotten laid in a week, sue me.”

Dean leads Cas to his room, once again, as he does every time Cas comes over to his place, like he should have seen this coming and he should have cleaned up, it always feels weird to be bringing Cas, with his perfect huge beautiful expensive apartment into his room, which is small and kinda dark and the desk takes up most of the room. Like Cas deserves better than this. Dean tries to pull up Spotify on his phone, having carefully turned off the record player before they made their way down the hall. Spotify is “loading” and Dean sighs in frustration, eager to get Cas back in bed.

“You okay over there?”

“Spotify is cockblocking me.”

Cas laughs softly, looking at the pictures taped to Dean’s wall. They were a mishmash of memories throughout his life, reminding him of his journey, his growth, the past mistakes and the past victories, black and white and color snapshots of tiny moments with those that he loved; as permanent and beautiful as the tattoos that littered his skin.

“Gotcha,” Dean says triumphantly when his playlist of choice (rock bops) begins to play.

“So romantic,” Cas laughs, still looking at the pictures on his walls, lightly running his finger over the group shot of Ash, Lee, him, and Bobby in Chicago. They had all been drunk off their asses when the photo was taken, right after the Cubs won the world series, and they had been laughing at something, probably some dumbass thing he and Lee had said, and Dean feels a little pang in his heart. He misses them, he misses Lee, but life moves on, you don’t get over it, but you move on. Geez, now he feels like a girl.

“Come here.”

He and Cas don’t talk much for a long while, spending the time between rounds simply looking at each other, which is very intense and sometimes Dean has to just look away from Cas, tracing his hands or the freckles on his arms to get away from his eyes, which he still feels like can see right through him.

Dean’s so damn into Cas, into the way he moves under Dean, or the way he gets on top of him, or the noises he makes, that he doesn’t realize that it’s getting dark, and he doesn’t hear the front door open, probably because neither of them are very good at being quiet, so he doesn’t hear Sam come home from work, and doesn’t hear the embarrassed coughing coming from the living room. So when he pulls on his boxers and opens the door to his bedroom, he loudly tells Cas to get his dick ready for the next round, before seeing that Sam is standing in the entrance to the kitchen, looking like an absolute deer-in-the-headlights, and Dean feels himself turning beet red before backing into the bedroom again and shutting the door, pressing his forehead into the cool wood.

“I, ah, take it Sam is home?”

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

“It’s all right, Dean. I’ve been looking forward to meeting him.”

Dean turns towards Cas, incredulous. He looks completely stunning, still all pink from the last go round, sweat beading his forehead, but Dean is too stressed to think about anything but that this is the last way that he wants Sam to meet Cas.

“You can’t meet him like this.”

“What do you propose? I crawl out the window? My shoes and coat are out there. He’s a big boy, he’ll be fine. Plus, I’m sure this is not the first time he’s heard you having sex.”

Dean’s eyes dart around the room, trying to find some way out of this.

“This isn’t how I want him to meet you, though.”

Cas softens, a little smile on his face, and he approaches Dean, taking his face in his hands.

“It seems on brand for you and me. I don’t think this will ruin anything. Now come on, let’s go meet the parents.”

Dean huffs a laugh in spite of himself, and he pulls on a t shirt and sweatpants as Cas gets back into his airport clothes, his suitcase long abandoned in the living room.

The walk down the hallway to the living room is the longest of Dean’s life. He feels like he’s walking down a hallway to his demise, this is a worst case scenario, the type of thing he sees in movies. This doesn’t happen in real life, does it? Where they get caught and the first meeting is post sex that the family hears? Fuck. He was so fucked. And not in the good way.

Sam is sitting on the couch, watching TV, some National Geographic show that Dean can’t stand, and he only looks up when Dean clears his throat. They were both brick red.

“Heya Sam,” Dean begins awkwardly, but then Cas takes control of the situation. He holds out his hand to Sam, smiling widely.

“Hi Sam, I’m Cas. It’s really nice to finally meet you.”

Sam relaxes by degrees, taking Cas’ hand and smiling back. Dean shakes his head a little, Cas could charm literally anybody in any situation, it’s probably why he’s so damn good at selling blank canvases for seven figures.

“Nice to meet you too. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“As have I. Sorry to interrupt your evening, I was actually about to head home, but I did want to meet you, make it official after so many weeks.”

Cas has managed to dry up the embarrassment like he’s holding a towel in his hands, and Dean stares in amazement as Sam relaxes more and more, the awkwardness of the initial circumstances of meeting evaporating in the air.

“Yeah, yeah. I mean, Dean can’t keep his mouth shut about you so I’m surprised I haven’t met you yet.”

Cas laughs, and Dean can’t get enough of that sound, even when it’s at his expense.

“We’ll have to all meet for dinner sometime, I’d love to get to know you better.”

“Yeah, yeah that sounds great.”

“Well,” Cas bends to pick up his suitcase and stuff his feet into his shoes, throwing his coat over his shoulder, “It’s really nice meeting you, Sam.”

Dean scrambles to walk him out, and kisses him too long on the doorstep before Cas pulls away, pulling out his phone to order an Uber like the rich bitch that he is.

“Goodbye Dean, I’ll see you later.”

“Bye Cas. Um, thanks.”

Cas just smiles, and Dean feels like his heart is a balloon.

Dean waits until the sleek black car carrying Cas rounds the corner, taking him back to Park Avenue, Dean missing him already. When he steps back inside, the tension in the air is back. It’s awkward and weird, not like Sam hasn’t caught him doing worse, but something about Cas made it different. Maybe because he wants Sam to like Cas, when, with everyone else, he doesn’t give a fuck what Sam thinks about them, because they’re gone from his mind the second the door closes. With Cas, he can never seem to get him out of his head, whether he was right next to him or five thousand miles away.

“So.”

“Okay Sam, alright, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before.”

Sam grins, the kind of little-brother glint in his eye that he got when he knew he had Dean on the ropes.

“Yeah but uh, wow.”

“Okay Sam.”

“Cas seems nice though.”

Dean rolls his eyes, still pretty fucking embarrassed about this whole thing, but Sam seems to have been thoroughly charmed by Cas.

“You should invite him to Christmas.”

“Huh?”

“Cas, he should come to Christmas with us, Charlie, and Eileen.”

Dean thinks about that, the silly gift exchange they always have at the apartment, with their shitty Christmas tree and Christmas movies playing on the TV the whole day. He thinks of Cas and the way their gag gifts would probably make his nose crinkle with laughter, how Charlie and Eileen would love him, how they could doze on the couch after Dean made a kick ass Christmas dinner, and he finds himself craving that intimacy, the domesticity of it all.

“Yeah, I- yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very very very soft and I am soft for these boys. Thank you guys so much for the love, the fact that this is in the The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection is literally so insane to me, I am so beyond grateful to all of you <3  
As always, I'd love to know what you guys think!  
Also happy birthday to my one and only Dean Winchester lol


	10. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The course of true love never did run smooth" - William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Dean ends up doing his Christmas shopping way too late, like Christmas Eve late. He knows what he wants to get for people, for everyone on his list, but getting the time to actually do it, when he was solidly booked out eight hours a day, six days a week, leading up to Christmas made it hard to come up for air. He barely has time to see Sam, let alone Cas, who’s understanding and utterly perfect, letting Dean Facetime him when he gets off of work at 2am, not caring if Dean passed out while they were still on the phone. Dean’s phone bill is going to suffer, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

Cas plans on joining them for Christmas Day, since he and his siblings did their holiday thing on Christmas Eve instead of on the actual day, and he texts Dean three days before, saying that he wanted to know what he might get Charlie.

_Probably something nerdy. She loves Lord of the Rings. Please don’t buy her New Zealand though._

All he gets in return is a middle finger emoji, and he has to push down that little kernel of fear he sometimes gets when Cas is just a little too perfect in every possible way. The inadequacy, he thinks it’s called, sometimes worms its way into his mind, even though Cas does nothing to warrant it, and Dean always feels second best when it comes to him, mostly due to the fact that Cas could probably stack his wealth all the way to the International Space Station if he chose to, and Dean’s got a nice car and a good shop, but his stack might only reach his knees if he was lucky.

He loves Christmastime, he really does, he loves shopping for others and the bad movies and that clients are always bringing them good food, but he’s never really had to stress about buying a perfect gift before. Sam, Charlie, Pam, Benny, Andrea, even Celeste, they were easy to shop for because they had no expectations, but there was a level of stakes with Cas that he wasn’t used to.

Dean goes shopping by himself on Christmas Eve, hitting up Bryant Park, getting some kick ass jewelry for Pamela and Andrea, picking up a handmade flask for Benny, and then heads to the Lego store, and gets a huge _Star Wars_ set for Charlie (that he knows is partially for him since they’ll build it together) and a princess-type set of Celeste. Finally, he ends up in the artsy part of Brooklyn, getting Sam a couple of books on fucking plants that he had been begging for, and picks up this really amazingly beautiful purple cashmere scarf for Eileen.

Then, he’s at a total loss. What the hell do you get for someone that literally has everything?

He’s wandering around, beanie pulled low around his ears, staring at the brightly lit shops, looking for something, anything that’ll just pop its head out and scream “Cas!” Dean has something in mind, a couple of sketches he had done that Cas simply could not stop looking at, plus, for a laugh, he got him one of those cheap watercolor paint sets, a throwback to when Cas wanted to be an artist. He got the sketches framed and has those and the paints ready to go, but there’s something missing, he wants this to be perfect, and it can’t be perfect if there’s something missing. 

He walks by one of those shops with completely random shit in it, and he sees that they have some movie stuff, so he heads on in, the warm air hitting his face, a welcome reprieve from the frigid air outside. It’s busy, because, you know, Christmas Eve, and he’s wandering around the overly crowded aisles and shelves, waiting for that thing to jump out at him, kinda like Cas did. 

Then, like a ton of bricks, there it is. Like the fates themselves had known he’d walk into that shop, there, in a display case near the front, is an original copy of the script for _Arrival_, signed by the cast, writers, and director, and Dean knows that, unless it’s like a million dollars, that’s what he’s getting for Cas.

The guy at the front practically preens when Dean asks about the script, and Dean, when he calculates and realizes that this will not prevent him from paying his rent or food, buys it on the spot, and clutches it to his chest all the way home, like it’ll disappear. He knows that gifts aren’t everything, but sometimes things just fall into your lap that are sorta meant to be. Like a Christmas miracle or some shit.

Sam, Eileen, Charlie, and Dean spend Christmas Eve together, watching _The Polar Express_, Eileen laughing to tears when Dean does his yearly choreographed dance to “Hot Chocolate.” Eileen has been such a perfect addition to their little group, as much a part of the family as Charlie, and she makes jokes that made Dean double over. Sam looked a little more in love with her every second, and who would’ve thought that a botany club in Central Park on Saturday mornings would have brought them a new person to laugh with and live with and love?

Dean sleeps soundly that night, probably due to the metric tons of eggnog he had consumed the night before, but he’s up and at em early to start cooking like a crazy person. Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner really go hand in hand, and no one seems to understand that but him. He’s already got the turkey in the oven by eight, and is humming along to the Christmas music playing quietly on his phone.

Cas shows up early, certainly earlier than Dean had expected, given that Cas was unlikely to be awake before noon most weekends, but he’s knocking at their door at nine-thirty, waking up a slightly hungover Charlie, who had, as usual, passed out on their couch the night before.

“Hey Cas,” Dean’s already working on the dressing, ready to throw it on the second rack of the oven when he was sure the turkey had enough time by itself (yes, he knows he’s kind of a freak about this, so sue him). Cas is holding like thirty bags and drops them all unceremoniously on the floor, breathing hard.

“What, that walk from your uber get you winded?” Dean teases, peeling potatoes as Cas hangs up his coat in the closet by the front door.

“For your information, I took the train here.”

“Wow, are you saying that you want your usual Uber drivers to spend the holiday with their families, I’m touched Cas.”

“Ha ha,” Cas rolls his eyes. He switches gears immediately when he sees Charlie, who looks at Cas like she’s seeing a literal angel, which, let’s face it, Cas kinda is.

“You must be Charlie,” Cas extends his hand, which Charlie bypasses and goes straight in for the hug. Cas returns it immediately, and Dean knows, he just knows that these two are going to get along just fine.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Dean literally won’t ever shut up about you.”

Cas’ eyes flick to Dean, who is definitely not red and hiding in potato peelings. Can his fucking family stop embarrassing him?

“He talks about you all the time too, I feel like I know you already.”

“Ugh I’m so glad you’re here! He’s so grumpy in the mornings and Sam and Eileen aren’t up yet so I’ve just been hanging out with him watching TV on mute. Come sit down!”

“You literally weren’t even awake, how do you know I’m grumpy?”

“Those are your grumpy shoulders,” Charlie’s steering Cas to the couch, and Cas gives him a smile that puts that familiar ache in his chest.

“She’s right, those are your grumpy shoulders.”

Dean rolls his eyes, trying to hide his smile.

As predicted, Cas and Charlie turn into best friends in about five minutes. Cas listens intently as Charlie breaks down the different levels of JRR Tolkien’s language usage in _Lord of the Rings_, and Charlie basically wiggles out of her seat when Cas talks about his unending love for classic gangster movies. Their chatter is the background to Dean’s furious cooking, and Sam and Eileen finally make an appearance at around 10:30, rubbing sleep from their eyes and sniffing the air as Dean’s apple pie starts to make the apartment smell like heaven.

“Smells good,” Sam grins, going straight towards Cas, pulling Eileen by the hand, “Cas, this is Eileen. Eileen, Cas.”

Eileen, like Charlie, goes straight in for the hug, and Cas is about as shy as Dean’s ever seen him. He’s got that small smile on his face, eyes a little downcast, Dean can tell he’s giving that puppy dog look that could make a stone statue melt into a puddle of goo. He knows because it’s happened to him at least five times a week since he and Cas started dating. 

Cas is adopted within ten seconds, and soon enough, with Dean still lost in the kitchen, the other four are having a loud conversation about whether they should watch_ It’s a Wonderful Life_ or _Elf_ while they unwrap gifts.

“It’s just going to be on mute,” Dean points out, finally making an appearance, all his prep in the kitchen finally done. He just had to check the turkey around seventy-five more times before he was satisfied with everything. Cas slides over to him immediately, and Dean feels all warm inside, happy to see Cas so relaxed and happy, especially since Dean really really really wants this to go well.

“Fine, you break the tie. Me and Charlie vote_ Elf_, Eileen and Cas vote _It’s a Wonderful Life_.”

“_It’s a Wonderful Life_.”

“Typical,” Sam rolls his eyes, selecting it from the DVR, “So, who’s going first?”

They go one at a time, each picking something to open, not moving on until the person before was finished with their gift. Sam gets a plant book from Eileen, complete with several pages of pressed flowers, and he presses a kiss into her hair, something so achingly intimate that Dean finds himself grabbing Cas’ hand almost instinctively, needing to be as close to him as possible. Charlie is ecstatic over her _Star Wars_ Lego set, and Eileen blushes crimson at the sight of her scarf, leaning forward to give Dean a tight hug that Dean returns, very much loving her right then. Even Sam is excited for his books, eyes brightening when he hands Dean three new records that Dean had been whining about not having.

Cas laughs uproariously at the paints Dean gives him, and grips his hand a little tighter when he sees the framed sketches, but he’s actually stunned when he rips open the paper covering the script and stares at it for a full ten seconds before he looks at Dean, eyes overbright and like they’re the only two there. 

“Dean. How did you-” he breaks off, looking down at the script again, fingers tracing the paper, “Nevermind, it’s…it’s perfect. So perfect.”

Dean grins, trying and failing to hide the blush creeping up his cheeks. Charlie, Sam, and Eileen are engrossed in conversation, letting them have this moment, and Cas takes the opportunity, sliding his own wrapped present towards Dean.

Dean unwraps it carefully and he feels the air leave his lungs. It’s a mint condition record of _Physical Graffiti_, but that’s not all. It’s signed. Signed, by every member of Led Zeppelin.

“Holy fuck,” Dean breathes, running his fingers reverently over the black ink covering parts of the windows, red lettering in the windows.

“Great minds think alike, apparently,” Cas smiles, covering Dean’s hand with his own. Dean tears his eyes away from the record and presses his lips to Cas’ forehead.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

“Of course,” Cas has this big goofy grin on his face and Dean doesn’t ever want to let him go. He does not know how Cas has stuck around this long, or why he hasn’t managed to scare him off yet, but sitting there on the wooden floor of his and Sam’s apartment, he tries just to revel in the gratefulness that he hasn’t chased him away yet.

After dinner, which Dean ropes Sam into helping him with, they all collapse in the living room, watching _A Christmas Story_ on repeat and Cas curled up next to Dean on the couch, Dean’s hand in his hair, breathing in slowly and deeply.

It’s sort of one of those perfect nights that didn’t come around often, and Dean just took a minute, surrounded by this family of his, to really appreciate where he was in the world. Especially with Cas curled around him. That was one of the best parts.

Dean’s nightmare of the painting is more vivid that night. He dreams that the monster that crushes him doesn’t look like a monster, but has the face of an angel, with blue eyes and dark hair. It crushes him, whispering promises of love and stability in his ears. He is afraid, terribly afraid.

When he jolts awake in a cold sweat, Cas is sleeping peacefully next to him, on hand on his arm, and Dean lays back down, tries to get his heart rate down, and tries not to think about the shifting face of the monster in his dreams.

______________________

It all goes to shit about a week after New Years. Dean comes to the crashing realization that he’s never fallen for someone this fast, certainly never let them in this fast, and one night, after another near-perfect night at Cas’ apartment, ruined only by a woman in the elevator on the way down looking down her nose at them as Cas walked him down, Dean finds himself at Charlie’s door, knocking too loudly until she opens the door, still half asleep.

“Dean?”

“Can we talk?” he doesn’t wait for an answer before pushing his way inside.

Charlie looks concerned, sleep leaving her quickly as Dean sinks down on her couch, face in his hands.

“Dean are you okay? What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

Dean’s standing at the edge of the cliff, looking down into a deep ravine. He could either throw caution to the winds and jump, letting himself keep falling for Cas, with no way to catch himself, and no way over knowing whether there would be a soft landing, or he could keep standing at the edge, looking over, not taking the risk but not able to move forward. He doesn’t know which one is worse.

“I think I’m in love with him.”

Charlie stares at him, and she half laughs.

“Uh, yeah, probably so. Look Dean, you talk about him all the time, you spend every spare moment with him, you leave work early for the first time ever to go spend five minutes with him, you introduced him to Sam, you stare at him incessantly when you’re together, it’s kinda ticking all the ‘I love you’ boxes.”

“Fuck Charlie. Fuck.”

“This is okay, Dean. It’s a good thing. He’s a great guy who clearly adores you and-”

“But when is the other shoe gonna drop, huh? When is he going to realize that I am not meant to be over there on Park Avenue with him and that I’m a fuckup dropout with a past that I never talk about, and run in the other direction?”

“Dean-”

“This is why I don’t get mixed up in stuff like this, especially with guys like him, you know. I’m looking to get my heart broken and now I’m in too deep and-”

He realizes that he’s hyperventilating, the crushing realization that this was not a one-night stand, that he had put himself out there for Cas to see, and now Cas could break his heart anytime he chose was too much.

“I’ve gotta run from this…he could break me.”

Charlie is holding onto his shoulders, his anchor in the choppy sea of this meltdown. He hears her sigh quietly.

“You don’t. Part of the relationship is trusting that they won’t break you.”

“And you saw how that worked out for me last time. Not to mention Chicago.”

Charlie sighs, knowing she can’t really talk him off this ledge, maybe just get him to back up a step or two before jumping.

“This isn’t last time, though, and you can’t compare past relationships to your current one, you know.”

“There’s still things he doesn’t know about me, the things that’ll make any sane person leave.”

“You’re projecting, you know that, right?”

“Am I?”

Charlie sinks down next to him, so understanding and so willing to let him in at 2am on a work night. He’s grateful for her, through the anxiety of course.

“Yeah dummy, you are. If you want him to know something, just tell him.”

“But he could leave.”

“He could, but do you think he would? Honestly?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lots of people have fucked families, Dean. You aren’t unique for having a shitty childhood, and knowing Cas, I don’t think he’s going to hold that against you. Plus, I’m proud of you, how far you’ve come, how you’ve turned your shit around, it’s really a good thing.”

“He’ll leave if I tell him.”

Charlie puts her head in her hands.

“Dean-”

“Sorry, I know you aren’t my therapist.”

“It’s not that and you know it, but this fear you have of what everyone would think about you if they knew all that is so stupid, and I have never been able to figure out a way to help you with that.”

Dean thinks, words echoing in his head from fights long past, from people long gone from his life, comparing him to the man he had idolized, who he had feared, who he had buried years ago.

“I wish I knew the answer to that.”

“I do too. But the only way you’ll know how Cas will react is to do your least favorite thing-”

“Talk to him about it.”

“Exactly right.”

Dean sighs, staring out of Charlie’s to the brick wall of the next building. Cozy as ever.

“Sorry to do this, C.”

Charlie takes him by the shoulders, making him look into her face.

“Don’t be, how many times have I come crying to you about my relationships? Do you want to stay here tonight? Crash on the couch?”

Dean hesitates, even after years of being friends with Charlie, he still had trouble saying yes to little things, even if those little things would make him feel a thousand times better.

“Yeah I, that’d be nice.”

Charlie gets him a pillow and a blanket and, because she’s the best, she turns on some original Scooby-Doo for him to fall asleep to. As he curls up on her couch, watching the gang catch the bad guy, Charlie runs her fingers lightly through his hair as she heads back to bed. He closes his eyes at her touch, still desperately afraid of being crushed under the foot of the monster that’s the way he feels about Cas.

The next morning, Dean ends up at Cas’ apartment, checking in with the security guy and being let up with an early morning grumble and a special code. He always feels like he’s visiting the president or the head of the KGB when he has to go through this process, but his heart is in a vice-grip, the crushing fingers unrelenting until he talks to Cas.

Cas opens the door, tousle-haired and shirtless, throwing a wrench in Dean’s plans, because he always seems to forget how beautiful Cas is every time he leaves him, his memory not even close to the real thing.

“To what do I owe this early morning visit?” Cas’ eyes are twinkling and Dean feels himself relaxing, wanting to go straight for his bed, forgetting the monster that crushes him, the only thought in his brain keeping Cas in bed, making him make those noises he makes that puts Dean on top of a mountain, where the air is thin and clear.

“Can we talk Cas?”

“Of course, come in.” Dean pushes his way inside, the overwhelming clean apartment with its million-dollar finishes cloying him, making is hard to focus, concentrate. He has to concentrate.

“I wanna tell you some stuff.”

“Okay,” Cas reaches towards him and Dean impulsively takes a step back, making Cas’ eyebrows knit with worry, “Is everything alright?”

“Um. Well. I’ve talked a little bit about my dad, about how we moved around a lot and stuff.”

Dean thinks of the different hotel rooms every few weeks, each the same with different coloring: the dirty sheets, the broken windows, the TV with nothing but static, the empty fridges save for a case of beer and two bottles of whiskey.

“And I didn’t ever tell you that he, he, he kicked me out when I was sixteen. Caught me with this guy I’d been seeing, and I don’t want you to think I’m hiding anything from you, you know? That I kinda had to rough it on my own for a while and didn’t really have anyone and was kinda a weird loner kid after that and I just…I wanted you to know about how fucked my family is because, I don’t want it to seem like I’m hiding anything.”

He was still hiding things, but, baby steps. He feels like he’s going to die just saying this.

Cas seems confused, running his hand through his hair and staring at Dean, who’s breathing too hard and thinking too much and being pulled back into his father’s shit and he doesn’t want to do this, he doesn’t want to do this, he doesn’t want to do this.

Before he can stop himself, he hits his knees, and Cas is there in a flash, pulling up his face, trying to get Dean to look at him.

“Dean, hey, Dean, look at me.”

Dean’s eyes meet Cas’ and he finds his breathing slowing almost immediately.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m-”

“If you say sorry one more time, I’m going to throttle you.”

Dean clamps his mouth shut, letting Cas runs his hands gently through his hair, and Dean feels the emotions running up his throat, choking him, and he knows what’s coming and he knows he can’t stop it, even though he does not want to do this in front of Cas.

He’s not a crier, he doesn’t like to cry. Sure, he’ll cry over sad movies or tense moments in Bake Off like any normal human, but tears over his actual life? No thanks. He tends to tamp it down until a crack in the levee makes the floodwaters burst forth, so he cries for hours over something like a stubbed toe on a random Tuesday. He can feel the crack, and knows that unless he turns and runs that Cas is going to have to see this, and, as usual with Cas, he drills him in place, Dean can’t leave him, he’s too…whatever he is with Cas. So he cries. He cries and cries and cries and remembers when John came home drunk, when he came home angry, when he didn’t come home at all. How Dean was the one that raised Sam when Mary died and John got lost in his grief, and he had taken his anger at the world out on Dean, throwing Dean to the wolves, making Dean earn the money when he was too wasted to care. And Dean was terrified, absolutely terrified that he was going to end up like his father, end up being who he used to be.

Cas holds him, strong and steady hands around him, and Dean has never been like this, he’s never been able to just be like this with someone that wasn’t blood. Not even Charlie, and he’s still afraid. He’s afraid that Cas is going to see this and think of how much easier he can have it with someone like him. Someone with a normal family and a house in the Hamptons and a yacht and a sky-high apartment in Manhattan, a place that looks over Central Park, a place that Dean doesn’t belong.

Dean breaks away from Cas after hiccupping his way into silence, and Cas looks at him with an edge of that thing he hates so much, that thing that he wishes didn’t fucking exist. Cas looks at him with pity, which, fuck, if Dean had had the stones to really fess up about his fucked past, Cas would never look at him the same way again.

“Sorry,” he whispers, looking anywhere but Cas’ face.

“Don’t be, it’s okay to have emotions, we all do.”

“Yeah well, I thought I told you, I’m an emotionless robot.”

He and Cas are pressed up against each other awkwardly, tangled together in a heap on Cas’ floor, and Dean can’t breathe, he can’t breathe because why doesn’t Cas get mad? Why doesn’t he tell him to get the fuck out? Why does Dean want nothing in the whole world but to make him smile? Why does he want to spend every waking moment with him?

He lets out a shaky breath, thinking about how warm Cas is, how much Dean likes behind held by him, tries not to think about how little he fucking deserves to be held by him, by a man who can purchase the place that he lives like it’s nothing, who takes UberBlack for god’s sake.

“How’s the meltdown doing?”

“Better,” he looks at Cas, who has concern still written all over his face, “Sorry to wake you, I know you like to sleep until two on weekends.

“Whatever, I’m always happy to see you.”

Dean doesn’t feel like he needs to tell Cas how much he needed to hear that, and Cas doesn’t hesitate, he helps Dean clamber to his feet, wiping his eyes and his nose on his flannel, and leads him slowly to bed, where Cas puts on Led Zeppelin and falls asleep holding Dean, Dean watching the city around him, arms still around Cas.

They don’t bring Dean’s big meltdown up again, and Dean is thoroughly embarrassed about it, but Cas treats him gently and still fucks him senseless, so Dean doesn’t have time to obsesses over it.

He tries his best to move past his weird hangups with his past, with his father, with the part of his life that he and Sam never talk about. It doesn’t always work, but he tries, he tries. For Cas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh.......what's Dean hiding huh??? ANYWHO hello we back with a CHRISTMAS chapter! Also some ~angst~ bc we all know my boi Dean knows nothing else. I'd love to know your thoughts of course, ilu all sm <3


	11. Splinter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor, giving you the thing you always wanted at the worst time possible.” ― Lisa Kleypas, Sugar Daddy

One day, when Dean finds himself with a rare weekend day off, he and Cas are taking it easy at Cas’ place. Sitting in a comfortable silence on Cas’ bed, Dean reading some shitty magazine about architecture that Cas had laying around, listening to Cas’ “work playlist” which was basically just new agey electronic music, that Dean loved secretly, in spite of himself.

“Dean?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m going to ask you something, and before you say no, I’d like you to really think about it.”

Dean looks up at Cas from the magazine he’s flipping through as Cas works on his computer, wearing these dorky reading glasses that Dean really loves, in an oversized sweatshirt and his boxers, Dean swears he could mainline this look and never need anything else ever again.

“Okay…”

“My siblings, well, my oldest brother is throwing a party at his home in Westchester next weekend, and I was wondering if you’d like to come with me.”

Dean sort of freezes in place. Meeting Cas’ family. Cas’ very rich, very upper class, very educated, probably very judgmental family.

“Um,” Dean starts, not looking at Cas, “You really want me at this thing?”

“Dean, we’ve been together for nearly five months, I think it’s time you meet them. They’re starting to ask me if you’re even real, anyway.”

The joke does nothing for Dean, who’s twisting his hands in his lap, still not looking at Cas.

“Yeah but I thought we’d meet, like, over dinner or something.”

“Dean, look at me.”

Dean does, blue eyes as calming as the sea itself.

“You don’t have to do this, but I think it would be nice. Plus, a dinner with them is not what you want, you can escape them or take them one at a time at a party. And trust me, it’s easier to deal with them one at a time.”

“I just don’t want them to think I’m, I don’t know,” Dean gestures down at himself, with his tattoos and his piercings and the bravado he wears like a mask everywhere he goes.

“You don’t have anything to hide from them, from anyone.”

_You don’t know_, Dean thinks, but smiles at Cas as he takes his hand, pulling up the mask that he was so adept at, that not even Dean could tell it was a mask sometimes.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll go. Sure.”

Cas smiles this stunning, brilliant smile, and it helps ease the knot of worry already taking hold in Dean’s chest.

Dean’s panic over meeting Cas’ siblings, at a party in Westchester no less, only grows as the week progresses. Sam tries to console him, the guys at the shop have given up completely, and Dean is withdrawn, even Cas can’t reach him at times, but any time he thinks of backing out, he finds himself thinking of the sad little look Cas will get on his face when he mentions it, and he forces himself to buck the fuck up and keep going, because he hates it, absolutely hates it, when Cas looks sad.

Cas ends up renting Dean a suit and tie, not a tuxedo, as he repeatedly had to point out to Dean when he was trying it on the afternoon of the party, Sam’s teasing that he was definitely going to look like a fish out of water still ringing in his ears.

“Dean, you’re like a board,” Cas sighs, trying to get him to stand somewhat normally so he could look at the suit. It was a nice thing, dark burgundy purple with a black button up shirt, Dean knew he looked damn fine in it, especially the way Cas was looking at him while he handed him a selection of ties, and Dean, in spite of the fact that he feels like he’s been wrapped in duct tape, goes for the black one covered in rainbow polka dots, and Cas has this soft smile on his face as he ties it for him.

“There. Now go look in the mirror.”

Dean stomps to the bathroom and stares at himself, unrecognizable. He looks good yeah, but good enough for the rich and probably famous that are going to be at this thing tomorrow?

“I can’t hide this,” Dean babbles, fingers touching the rose on his neck, pulling down on the skin like he can make the ink go away, the red, the black, the green, the hints of blue and yellow. Cas stills his hands with his own.

“You don’t need to. It’s going to be fine.”

Dean really desperately wants to believe that, but as he stands in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection as Cas starts to get ready around him, he really finds that he can’t. he ends up sitting on the edge of Cas’ bed, not moving save for the anxiety leg-bounce that was omnipresent with his own stress. Cas tries to reassure him every time he leaves the bathroom, even placing searing hot kisses on the side of his neck, promising things unsaid when they returned, but Dean’s mind is so fogged up with anxiety and inadequacy and doubt that he can’t return them with the same degree of enthusiasm as he usually would.

“You ready?”

Cas looks absolutely stunning, in a fancy gold patterned suit jacket that made Dean want to throw him on the bed and fuck him boneless. Cas can, apparently, sense the heat with which Dean is looking at him, because he smiles a little too slyly and slides his arms around Dean, pulling him close and making Dean’s heart race in that perfect way.

“The sooner we go the sooner we can come back.”

“Are you trying to rope me into liking this with the promise of sex?”

“It’s never not worked before.”

Dean rolls his eyes, smiling in spite of the fact that his heart still felt like it was going to fall out of his body at any second.

“Touché.”

“Come on, come be my arm candy and make my siblings jealous.”

Panic rises by degrees in his chest on their way to Gabriel’s house in Westchester. Apparently it was the family home, left to Gabriel when their mother had passed the year before, finally losing her years long battle with lung cancer. Cas grips his hand the whole way, and Dean insists on taking the Impala, the open air and being behind the wheel is something that he can control in an out of control situation.

They listen to Zeppelin the whole way, and Dean can stop smiling when Cas starts singing loudly off-key, hand hanging out of the window, despite the chill of winter still hanging in the early March air.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“With hot tracks like this? Never.”

“Don’t insult the greatest music ever made Cas, even though you give the best blowjobs I’ve ever had doesn’t mean I won’t throw you out onto the pavement.”

Cas just smiles, eyes closed, and Dean almost crashes the car at how perfectly relaxed he looks. He really does need to take Cas on a roadtrip, because he could definitely get used to this view.

They have to get through like three gates to get to the winding driveway leading up to the house, and it’s just as huge as Dena expected, a classic northeastern mansion, colonially white with dark shutters, a large porch, white balloons and topiaries decorating every spare inch of driveway and lawn.

“He does like to go all out,” Cas sighs as Dean parks the car, careful to stay about ten feet away from the classic Aston Martin in front of him.

“Yeah, I’ll say. You grew up here? It’s nice. You’ve never really told me about it.”

“Another time,” he whispers, standing taller as they approach the front door. It opens before they can get to him, and Dean is suddenly whisked inside by Gabriel, who he recognizes from the photos that Cas had showed him. He’s shorter than either Dean or Cas and has this glint in his eye that tells Dean he’s going to be an easy target to get made fun of the whole night.

The house is, predictably, completely stunning. It big and open with a grand staircase leading upstairs, those staircases you see in romantic comedies where the very rich girl meets the equally very rich boy for prom. The walls are white and the whole place has an air of sterility that Dean associates with home and garden magazines. It doesn’t feel like anyone lives here, except for the pictures on the walls, he would have thought this was an event space, not someone’s home. Dean tries to get a look at the pictures, but Gabriel is moving too fast, talking quickly and loudly, making Dean’s ears hurt a little.

“So you weren’t making him up then, Castiel?” Gabriel winks at him, and Dean feels a blush creeping up his cheeks, giving his bad boy persona away immediately.

“No Gabriel, I, unlike you, don’t feel the need to make up partners just to annoy my family.”

“That was one time!”

“And you created an entire fake social media following just so we would believe it.”

“I have my skills.”

“Mmm, skills in deception.”

“Come on, we’re boring your man, has he met everyone?”

“He hasn’t, and we’ll find them.”

Gabriel slaps Dean on the back and looks him up and down in a way that makes him feel a little like he’s a piece of meat.

“Well, so nice to finally meet you, Dean. Come find me if you want to start having an actual good time.”

“What does that mean, an actual good time?” Dean whispers as Gabriel disappears into the crowd, sticking out like a sore thumb in his all white suit and bellowing voice.

“Probably cocaine,” Cas half laughs as Dean’s eyebrows shoot into his hair, “He’s a party animal and he knows I’m not.”

“I don’t know, it is pretty crazy when you decide to have two pieces of pie after dinner.”

Cas turns his head to hide his laugh, but before Dean can ask how soon until they can leave, they’re suddenly surrounded by people that want to pull Cas away from him and meet him with the kind of silent judgement that Dean was expecting. 

He meets gangly Samandriel, the youngest and the chef, and he likes him best, he’s smiley and doesn’t look at Dean like he’s something to consume. They end up talking for a little while about what they like to cook, and he picks up some good tips from him on how to slice vegetables for a killer ratatouille.

“Like the movie?” Dean asks, and Samandriel’s face sort of lights up, making Dean feel like he might have a little bit of an in with him. It’s a comfort in a place where he’s supremely uncomfortable.

“That’s a pretty good movie considering there are rats in the kitchen.”

“Dude, that movie rocks. Plus the main guy’s name is Linguini and who doesn’t want to be named after pasta.”

They’re interrupted by a man in a v-neck t shirt slinging his arm around Samandriel’s neck and staring at Dean looking him up and down, eyes catching at the tattoos on his knuckles, his neck, his lip ring. Dean is immediately on edge, the little bit of comfort Samandriel had brought vanishing like a puff of smoke in the wind.

“Is this Dean? Cassie’s Dean?”

The name seems wrong for Cas, and Dean looks around instinctively for him and sees him in the corner with some tall dude. He remembers, dimly, that Cas had mentioned that there would be some of his old high school and college friends at this thing, but that does nothing to stem the mixture of panic, anger, and fear that floods Dean when he sees them standing together.

“Balthazar,” v-neck man leans over and places kisses on Dean’s cheeks, and he feels himself turning red because, even though Cas had told him, once upon a time, that Balthazar had spent a lot of time in Europe, but it doesn’t help calm Dean down. Why is Cas leaving him on his own in this? Why is he just over there making eyes at some dude when Dean is drowning meeting his family for the first time? What the fuck is he doing here?

“So nice to finally meet you, Dean,” Balthazar pulls Dean away from his angry throughts, “We were starting to think you weren’t real at all.”

“Well, uh, here I am,” Dean says, lamely, feeling with every passing second like he never wanted to return to Westchester again.

“So I can see,” Balthazar smirks. Dean doesn’t know what to say. He’s never really been good at talking to people, unless they were clients, and he can feel himself crashing and burning at charming Cas’ family. Even Samandriel was pissing him off now, the little moment of joy talking about food and movies long gone.

“Well this has been stimulating,” Balthazar looks Dean up and down again, “But I actually see one of our cousins, come on Samandriel.”

Before Samandriel can say anything else, Balthazar pulls him away, and Dean immediately fucks off to a corner in the softly lit yard, hands in his pockets and the collar of his shirt pulled as high as possible.

Cas is off talking to some old friends from high school and Dean does his best to ignore the people around him who are definitely staring at him and definitely looking down their noses at him and definitely wondering why the fuck Cas was there with someone like him. He watches Cas from across the lawn, lit with those fancy lanterns that rich people bought at Pottery Barn, and he sees this guy lay his hands right on him, all touchy and huggy and Dean wants to die, he doesn’t want to be here, why they fuck did Cas drag him here?”

“Having a good time?” he’s jerked out of his thoughts by Anna, who is tall and willowy and red-haired, beautiful by any and every standard. She’s dressed in white which is in contrast to the glass of blood red wine she’s holding.

“Huh? Yeah, this is cool.”

“My brother has always had a flare for this kind of thing, makes him very successful in live theatre.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Dean doesn’t really know what to say…again. He doesn’t speak rich person and Cas isn’t there to save him, too wrapped up in whatever he and that guy were still talking about over there.

“So, Castiel tells me you’re an artist?” Anna surveys him over her wine glass, and Dean can’t tell whether she’s judging him or not. Probably.

“Yeah, I guess. Tattoo artist.”

“Hm,” Anna looks him up and down again, and Dean feels hot all over, but not the good kind of hot he feels when Cas looks at him. He’s uncomfortable and his suit is hot and Cas’ sister doesn’t like him and he wants to leave and never look back.

“Yeah, and Cas told me you’re a writer?”

“Yes, I am. And it’s Castiel.”

“Huh?”

“Castiel is his name.”

What the fuck?

“Oh, uh, yeah. Right.”

Anger begins to bubble in his chest again, stronger and stronger and stronger this time. Why the fuck did Cas bring him to this if he was just going to leave him here to get shit-talked by his family? He’s exposed in the open air, like a deer caught in the crosshairs of a gun, and Cas’, Castiel’s whole family is aiming at him. Gabriel with his smug laughter, Anna with her coldness, Samandriel with his simpering gaze, Balthazar with his accent and his v-neck. He hasn’t even met Gadreel but he hates him too. Dean is drowning, drowning in how badly this is going, how much he wants to leave, how much he wants to strip off this costume and just leave, just go, take the Impala and drive back to Brooklyn with Pamela and Benny and Sam and Charlie and Eileen and not ever set foot in Westchester again.

He needs some air, and not air surrounded by people who summer in the fucking Hamptons or whatever. He’s moving before he can even register he’s going somewhere, taking long strides and dodging out of the pretty lighted yard and back into the plush house under the watchful eyes of Anna burning holes into his back. He feels like he might be having a panic attack and throws open the front door and heads for sanctuary: the Impala. His hands splay against the hood and he takes a couple of breaths, not wanting to go into full hysterics in front of all these fancy fucking cars.

After a couple of minutes, he pulls himself together enough to resolve not to go back in. 

Cas finds him leaning against the Impala, wishing that he smoked or something, so he didn’t look like such a goddamn idiot.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

Cas can see right through him, as usual.

“What did Anna say to you?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

Dean’s lower jaw juts forward. He’s ready for a fight, because it’s easier to be angry than feel literally anything else.

“Just that your full name is Castiel and that’s what I should call you.”

Cas rolls his eyes, shaking his head.

“They are so fucking ridiculous. You’re the only one that calls me that, and they’ve tried to make it a nasty pet name for me since I met you. Don’t take it personally, she’s trying to rile you up.”

“And where the fuck were you? Talking to some guy while your sister tore into me and made me feel like shit for calling you Cas and being a tattoo artist.”

“He’s a friend from high school and I’m sorry she said that to you, they aren’t particularly trusting and can say nasty things.”

Dean shifts from foot to foot, still seething from his conversation with Anna.

“Yeah. Great. Whatever.”

Cas’ eyes narrow and he widens his stance, fancy fucking shoes crunching a little in the gravel.

“So is that it?”

“Is what it?”

“Is this the end of our evening here?”

“That’s up to you, they’re your family.”

Cas sighs, crossing his arms. Dean is getting his wish, he’s pissing Cas off, starting a fight. He learned a long time ago that fighting and anger are easier than almost anything else.

“Let me rephrase: do you want to go?”

“Do you?”

“Well her comments clearly ruined the evening, so I think it’s best if we go now. I don’t want there to be a big fight.”

“You think I’ll cause a fight?”

Cas exhales loudly, glaring at Dean.

“Did I say that? You’re acting like a child and I don’t want to stay if this is how the evening is going to go.”

“It’s not my fucking fault.”

“Great. Does that make you feel better? I’ll say goodbye to them and we can leave.”

Cas turns on his heel and goes back to the party, and Dean is left to stew, thinking, because he’s just that way, about the way this fight felt, how he felt like fights he had had with Lisa, or fights he had had in Chicago. He’s starting to spiral again, he can feel it, and when Cas comes back and gets in the car without a word, the spiraling only continues.

The ride back to the city isn’t nearly as enjoyable as the one on the way there. Cas and Dean sit in huffy silence, not even playing music to break the sounds of the road and their occasional sniffs or sighs. Dean is still royally pissed off by the whole thing, which went about as badly as first family meetings can be, and he just knew it, he knew they’d hate him because of the way that he looked and the way that he was and the way that he didn’t have any money and the way he had tattoos in visible places and a lip ring and the way he was defiling their precious rich-boy brother.

But, even as angry as he was, he didn’t like being in a fight with Cas, and he didn’t like the space between him and Cas, that Cas would create more of every time he tried to bridge the gap. This sucks.

“Cas-” Dean begins as he rounds a corner and sees the city in the distance.

“Just drop me off at home,” Cas interrupts, staring straight ahead of him. Dean rolls his eyes and sighs.

“Can we talk about this?”

Cas keeps staring out the window, lips pursed.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

They’re quiet for the rest of the car ride, and Dean parks in the spot that Cas has reserved in his building, always empty unless Dean decides to take him out on a date in the Impala. Cas immediately unbuckles his seatbelt when Dean puts the car in park, and tries to make a sprint for the elevator out of the garage, but if Dean had learned anything from Bobby Singer, it was to never go to bed angry, no matter how angry you are. He hadn’t really taken it to heart until now.

“Cas,” Dean catches his arm, and Cas is still refusing to look at him, refusing to meet his eyes, “Sorry that went so shitty.”

“Are you sorry for your part in making it shitty, or just that it was shitty?”

Dean doesn’t want to apologize because he doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong. That must be written all over his face because Cas rolls his eyes again, shoulders dropping.

“You really thought we’d get along?”

“No, but I thought it would go a little better than…that.”

“We can try again another time, maybe do dinner?”

“You don’t want to do dinner.”

“No, but I feel like shit about this whole thing so.”

Cas softens a little at that.

“I’m trying to be angry at you, stop compromising with me.”

“I am sorry.”

“I know you are, and I’m sorry about Anna, she’s never really been great about me being, ah, into men. So I shouldn’t be surprised but I shouldn’t have dragged you into it with no warning.”

“So that’s what that was about?”

The tension leaves Cas’ muscles by degrees, and Dean’s glad they’re talking now because he does not like them being in a fight, not at all.

“Partially, they are protective of me, Anna and Balthazar especially, but they were all eager to meet you. I suspect she was probably drunk.”

“She was holding wine.”

“My sister is an alcoholic, Dean. She probably had half a bottle of vodka before the party even started.”

Dean draws up short. The offhand way Cas mentions it is something that only someone with experience does, the type of person that’s lived with the problem for years, decades, so that’s nonchalant, something that just is.

“Oh.”

“Sorry I-” Cas steadies himself, “Not something I usually shout to the world. Not my issue to bring up.”

“I get it, you don’t have to say anything else.”

Cas huffs a breath, holding in tension that not even Dean knew was there. 

“I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to…be with you. I just feel like, after tonight, it might be better to.”

“Cas, I get it. I’ll see you later.”

Their kiss goodnight is still too brief and too clipped, and Dean watches Cas get on the elevator, still feeling half guilty, half defiant about this whole thing.

Dean takes the time on the way back to his apartment, sitting in the absolutely horrendous traffic and fighting his way back to Brooklyn, to reflect on just how totally fucked up the evening had been. He felt dirty, unclean, even though that might have been the cleanest and nicest house he’d ever been in. Anna’s words still echo in his head, Balthazar’s shitty looks, the way Gabriel made fun of him, Samandriel’s smirks. Jesus, he thought he was fucked, just look at them, how did Cas come out so…perfect? There were secrets and lies hidden deep in every family, but it seems like each Novak sibling had something unique, some weird shit that they didn’t tell anyone. Cas loved them though, and if Dean wants to be a part of Cas’ life long term, which, terrifyingly, he really really does, he’s gotta buck up, but his big boy pants on, and get it together.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We in the ~angst~ now homies. How we feelin about all this? I'd (of course) love to know what y'all think! And I just like can't express how grateful I am for all of you reading this story, sticking with me on it, you're all amazing and ilu so much <3


	12. Shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hearts are made to be broken.” - Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

Cas lets Dean get back into the swing of things before they try again. Life goes back to normal. They go back to not fighting (unless you count who gets to buy the next dinner date or what movie they’re going to not watch before they start fucking on Cas’ couch), they hang out with Sam and Eileen and Charlie and Pamela, Cas spends more and more nights at Dean’s apartment, so much that the bed smells like him and Dean misses him whenever he’s gone. But the subject of an actual dinner is broached several weeks later, right when Dean is going down on Cas in Cas’ bedroom in the middle of the day. It’s pretty cool to fuck with the curtains open, he’s never gotten used to that.

“I think you should come to dinner with me and my siblings next week.”

Dean pulls up, so violently that he almost throws himself off the bed.

“What? Are you saying to me? While I have your dick down my throat?”

Cas threads his hands through Dean’s hair, still hard and looking like a deity propped up on downy pillows.

“I should’ve realized it would be blueballing myself to tell you this now but you know me and the word vomit.”

Dean drags himself up towards Cas’ face, holding his face in his hands.

“Cas, are you absolutely sure? Are you sure about this? A dinner with all of them? After what happened at the party thing?”

“I’m sure. You’re in my life and I want them to know that.”

“That’s what you said last time,” Dean points out. There are precious few things that annoy him about Cas, but his optimism, especially about his family, which blinded him in a way that Dean couldn’t understand, was one of them.

“Sure, but it’ll be different this time.”

Dean can’t help but roll his eyes, and Cas gets that steely look when he can feel that they’re about to have a fight.

“Are we really arguing right now?” he asks, setting his jaw in a way that makes sure that Dean knows he’s pissed him off.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s like you have memory loss when it comes to them.”

“To my family?”

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

Dean shakes his head, not wanting to get into a fight, but it’s not like he had really been able to forget just how shitty of a situation he had been put in there.

“I don’t wanna fight, Cas.”

“Then why do you make it so easy to fight with you?”

“I’m just saying-”

“I know what you’re saying.”

Dean runs his hands through his hair, laying back on the soft duvet, looking up at the coffered ceiling with the recessed lighting, listening to the world spin on forty floors below their little piece of stopped time.

“Why’d you tell me this now? In the middle of blowing you?”

“Because I knew you’d balk any other time.”

Cas is pouting, still looking too good to be allowed, and Dean hates it when he gets that crease in between his eyebrows when he’s upset.

“Okay. I’m crazy, but okay.”

_________________________

“Oh god. I’m crazy. I’m like actually fucking crazy.”

“Dean,” the longsuffering sigh comes from Sam, sitting in the waiting room of Kashmir, waiting for the shop to close so he and Charlie can go crush some air hockey at the arcade down the block with Eileen. Dean’s pissed he’s not going, but the dinner is upon him, and he’s ready to walk into his doom.

“It’s a dinner, Dean, not a firing squad,” Pamela swishes past him, wiping down her station, and Benny nods emphatically from the client he’s just finishing up on.

“It could be fun, anyway. You’ll probably go somewhere really nice. And you know the booze is gonna be top fucking shelf,” Charlie grins at him.

“I can’t exactly get shitfaced at my boyfriend’s monthly family dinner but thanks. Plus you haven’t met them, they make the Lannisters seem like a functional family”

“Boyfriend? Wow.”

“Okay Benny, not you too.”

“Sorry man, just never heard that word come out of your mouth before.”

“Yeah well he is and his family is absolutely awful.”

“Not anything we don’t know,” Sam points out, which does absolutely nothing to calm Dean down.

“You are so worked up over this,” Pamela tries her best to placate him, “It’s going to be fine, you’re panicking over nothing.”

“He’s lovesick,” Sam calls from the front, ignoring Dean flipping him off.

“Oh I can tell that,” Benny smiles after his regular is wrapped up and has paid, “He talks about Cas the way I used to talk about Andrea when we first met. Couldn’t talk about anything else.”

“Y’all know I’m still right here, right?”

“Yeah, and we can tell how freaked you are,” Pamela runs a soft hand over the top of his head.

“Well it’s not like the last big event I went with him to was a big success.”

“You can’t take that kinda shit to heart,” Benny has joined the group now, holding onto Dean’s shoulder, a little bit of comfort in the roiling sea that Dean was currently drowning in, “If they don’t like you that’s their problem. Cas clearly does and that’s all that matters.”

“I guess.”

“Nah, you know that and you’re just too scared to admit it.”

“Why is it turning into annoy Dean day?”

“Every day is annoy Dean day, just look at my calendar,” Charlie grins at him, waggling her eyebrows, “What are you afraid of? That his big scary siblings are going to be scandalized by you?”

Yes. Exactly.

“No! You know I don’t care about that.”

“Sure, until it comes to Cas.”

“You gonna take out the lip ring? I have some dermacol you can borrow.”

“Fuck off.”

“Oooo, be careful, their wealthy ears might not be able to handle such language,” Charlie pretends to fan herself. Dean is getting more uncomfortable by the second. He checks his watch, trying to ignore the heat that’s rushing to his cheeks, knowing that they’re getting to him.

“I gotta go.”

The group softens, no longer laughing at his expense.

“It’s gonna be fine, Dean,” Benny smile is gentle, the kind of smile he gives Celeste when she’s off to bed, dragging a beat-up teddy bear behind her.

“It really will, they’ll love you. We do,” Pamela hugs him, as does Charlie, who squeezes his shoulders. Sam claps him on the back.

“Me, Eileen, and Charlie are going out, wait up for us if you come back to the apartment tonight.”

“Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

“You’ll be fine, Dean.”

He’s not so sure about that.

_____________________

Cas manages to wipe all the worries out of his mind with a goddamn amazing blowjob the second he walks into Cas’ place. He must’ve been banking on Dean’s nerves. He knows him better than he knows himself sometimes.

“You okay?” Cas wipes his mouth and look at him with those eyes, mouth swollen and cheeks pink. So goddamn _pretty_.

“Better now, I’ll tell you that,” Dean is still holding onto the edge of Cas’ couch like a lifeline.

“Good. That was the plan. I knew you’d be tense.”

“Why, because the last time I saw your family they made us get into a huge fight?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily blame that fight entirely on them. But yes.”

“Good to know that you think you can calm me down just with sex.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

Dean laughs. Can they just stay here for the night?

“Yeah. It did.”

“Come on,” Cas stands, stretching, giving Dean the view of the millennia with the way he arches his back, his stomach exposed to the air as he lifts his arms above his head. Fuck. He’s hot.

Dean’s anxiety in the following hour is like one of those heart rate machines you see at hospitals or, rather, in hospital shows: peaks and valleys. One second he and Cas are playfighting, tackling each other onto Cas’ bed, fighting turning into long, slow kisses, and the next Dean’s pacing while Cas tries to figure out what tie he likes best with his outfit. 

“You’re making me nervous,” Cas pokes his head around from his closet. Dean continues to pace.

“How fancy is this place?”

“It’s nice, one of our favorite restaurants. They have great steak.”

“Okay. Where is it?”

“Nearby. On Park.”

“So it’s really fancy.”

Cas reappears to give Dean one of his looks. He has a tie around his neck, buttons of his shirt halfway undone. Dean wants nothing more than to take that tie and drag him over to the bed. Fuck this stupid dinner.

But, it’s important to Cas. That’s what matters.

“It’s nice, I think you’ll like it.”

They walk from Cas’ place to the restaurant, which only takes reservations and is covered in those fancy twinkling string lights. The hostess leads Cas and Dean, who’s back in that purple suit that Cas liked so much he ended up just buying for him, to a long wooden table in the back, lit with candles and soft overhead light. Set for seven, which is a weird and awkward number for a dinner party. Dean’s palms are already sweating.

There are only two of Cas’ siblings at the table when they approach. Anna, sitting primly upright in a green dress that, even Dean had to admit, looked pretty stunning, even though the bitter taste of their last encounter still stung his mouth, and Gadreel, who was in a suit and tie, clearly not coming from work, Dean had expected scrubs.

“Dean,” Gadreel stands offering his hand. He gives a good handshake, not as good as Cas’ though.

“Hi, nice to, uh, meet you.”

“You don’t have to lie you know?” Anna says smoothly, setting down her wine glass and standing, giving Dean the kind of once-over that makes him sick to his stomach. He wants to run.

“Anna,” her name is a warning in Cas’ mouth. He stands taller than normal, his eyes are stormy, and Dean really wants to kiss him. Probably inappropriate to do in the middle of a crowded restaurant, in front of his siblings.

“Where are the others?” Cas slides smoothly into his seat, Dean scraping his chair against the wood floor to sink into it. Anna gives him a disdainful look. He really does not like her.

“Samandriel is on his way, got caught at work, and you know that Gabriel and Balthazar love to be late.”

“They shouldn’t be long,” Gadreel cuts in, “I told them we were supposed to meet half an hour ago.”

Anna smiles. It suits her, she should do it more often.

“You’ve always been the smartest.”

“Well, I am the only one with a PHD.”

Dean snorts at that. It’s rich guy humor, sure, but Dean can appreciate a joke, no matter who it comes from.

The waiter brings drink menus, and Cas convinces Dean, under his breath, to get a really nice bourbon that loosens Dean by degrees, working on his tightened muscles as well as a hot shower. Cas, Gadreel, and Anna do the majority of the talking, for which Dean is grateful. He’s starting to feel almost sort of relaxed when Samandriel, Balthazar, and Gabriel come through the door, Gabriel and Balthazar bringing all the chaos that extroverts can possibly bring.

“Dean! So glad we didn’t scare your off with our alcoholism and drug habits,” Gabriel winks at him, grabbing him in a hug that Dean is not at all prepared for. He’s followed immediately by Balthazar who, supposedly because he went to Europe for graduate school loved to pretend to be a “real European” and kisses Dean on the cheeks.

“So good of you to come.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks.”

Samandriel is the only person who seems semi-normal, giving Dean a handshake and sitting quietly while the decibel level at the table pretty much doubles with the arrival of Gabriel and Balthazar.

“So, Gabriel, tell us about the new show,” Anna swills her wine, watching Gabriel as he downs pretty much an entire vodka soda in one second, clicking his fingers at the waitress for another one. If he was one of those people that treated waitstaff like shit, they were gonna have words.

“It’s fine. The theatre is up my ass at all times about it, and the director is just a complete douchebag, but it should do well.”

“Gabriel is producing the revival of a big musical this year. It’s a new take on a classic,” Cas whispers in his ear.

“Oh cool.”

“What about you, Anna? How’re your romance novels coming along?”

“How is it, that you always manage to insult my work whenever we’re together?”

“Because I like screwing with you.”

Fortunately for Dean, the group really pays him no mind. He’s there, sure, occasionally the subject of uncomfortable remarks by Balthazar or Gabriel and sidelong glances bordering on disgust from Anna, but overall, they just ignore him, which is just fine by Dean, nursing his whiskey and holding onto Cas hand for dear life every time they addressed him.

“So, Dean, Castiel tells us you have a brother,” Gadreel turns all eyes on him after the appetizers (filet mignon bites and shrimp, because of course) arrive at the table.

“Yeah, yeah. Sam. He’s a lawyer.”

“An attorney?” Anna acts like there’s a difference in what they said, “Interesting. What branch.”

“Criminal defense.”

“Really,” Gadreel looks really interested for the first time tonight, of course they’d be more interested in Sam than they were in him. But he could talk about Sam for hours, so maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing.

“Yeah, he passed the bar a couple of months back, he’s starting out as a second chair for a smaller team, but they’re taking him to court a lot which he’s excited about.

“Did you hear? Ezekiel got arrested for tax fraud?”

Just like that, they leave Dean alone again.

“Who’s Ezekiel?” he asks Cas out of the corner of his mouth.

“Our cousin. He’s an investment banker on Wall Street, makes millions. So he avoids his taxes I guess.”

Dean laughs a little at that.

Their entrees arrive and, as usual, Cas is right, the steak is amazing. It’s so good, in fact, that Dean strikes up a conversation with the resident chef, Samandriel over it when he practically passes out over the bearnaise sauce on his filet mignon. 

“I always make them come here, the food is top notch.”

“How’d you get into the chef thing, since none of your siblings seem to be able to cook worth a damn.”

“I take issue with that, you know I can cook breakfast.”

Dean smiles at Cas.

“You can, but I’m telling you, man, those fancy knives you bought him are wasted on him.

“Oh I know, I tried to get them all cooking lessons one year. Didn’t go over well.”

“Those knives get used now. You use them.”

“They really are nice, I can’t get enough of them when I’m over at his place.”

“Stop talking about my brother’s body at the dinner table!”

Dean chokes on his water, Cas has to thump him on the back.

“Balthazar,” Cas warns, immediately latching a hand onto Dean’s forearm, “Don’t be an ass.”

“Just picking up on the conversation Cas,” he squints over at Dean, making Dean turn red even though he wants to look pissed and nothing else.

Why does Balthazar get to call him Cas? That was Dean’s name for him, he had said so a couple months into them dating. Dean was fiercely proud of that. He didn’t want this asshole taking Dean’s name for him, even if that asshole was Cas’ brother.

“As usual, you picked up wrong,” Cas glares daggers at him, and they hit Balthazar enough that he grins lazily and turns back to his conversation with the others.

Dean spends most of the evening ignoring Gabriel, Balthazar, and Anna, and ends up rather enjoying his time with Samandriel and Gadreel. Samandriel is quiet and questioning, clearly actually listening to him, and Gadreel says next to nothing, but watches and listens too, classic in the oldest brother way, analyzing Dean, but not in the uncomfortable way that Anna did.

He’s never really allowed to get comfortable though, because right when he starts relaxing, when his shoulders stop tensing and he shares a laugh with their little group, one of the other three will pop in, pushing a button they can only know subconsciously will bother him, and he’s right back to square one. Cas does his best, handing out insults that cut his siblings whenever they’re rude, but there’s only so much he can do. And Balthazar and Anna’s disdain for Dean grows more apparent with every word they speak to him.

“So Dean, when did you get into tattooing?” It seems like a loaded question coming from Balthazar, who settles his chin in his hand, looking too innocent, like the type of carnivorous plant that seduces bugs to land on it, promising nectar that traps them.

“When I was sixteen.”

“Oh come on, you can do better than that. If we’re going to be seeing more of each other, I want to know more about you.”

This is exactly what Dean hadn’t wanted to happen, he hadn’t wanted the focus of the table to be on him under any circumstances, and now look where they were? Each pair of eyes on him made him feel slightly sicker to his stomach. He had never been one for public speaking, and now the stakes were raised, like if he said the wrong thing then his shot with Cas is over.

“Sorta like my calling I guess.”

“He’s a wordsmith, Castiel,” Anna’s eyes glint, Dean wants to die.

“Anna.”

“Oh come on, he’s an older brother, he knows how sibling relationships work.”

Dean privately thinks that he didn’t have a relationship this dysfunctional with Sam. There are some seriously malicious undertones to everything they’re saying to each other, like they had to watch every step they took, lest they set off a land mine. Dean remembers Cas saying that he really loved spending time with his siblings. What the hell is Dean missing here? He doesn’t like to judge, but the vibes he’s getting from them are not of a family that really enjoys being around each other. More like a pack of wolves that’s starving, searching for the weakest link, ready to attack as soon as any weakness was shown.

The tablecloths in this place are too white and starched, Dean feels like he’s going to cut himself on their corners. He sort of feels like he’s surrounded by jagged glass anyway, anywhere he turns he’s faced with the sharpness of the next comment from Anna or Balthazar, Cas’ warm, solid presence the only thing that keeps him from being sliced to ribbons.

“And how did you meet our Castiel here?” pipes up Gabriel, a little less malicious and a little more mischievous, like everything was a joke that only he knew the punchline to.

“Oh. Met at one of his gallery openings.”

“You know that Gabriel, I’ve told you.”

Cas has a warm, steadying hand on his arm under the table. Grounding him. He wants another drink. Or maybe a fucking Xanax.

“Well, we didn’t really get a chance to talk at the party, you ran out so fast. We thought we’d scared you off.”

Dean tries to laugh, and he notices that he’s started pulling at the metal of his lip ring, a nervous habit that he doesn’t do often, and he tries to stop, but his fingers just keep tapping gently on the cool metal whenever Anna, Balthazar, or Gabriel try to engage with him.

“Nope just, uh, wasn’t feeling well.”

“Food poisoning maybe? Samandriel did cook the food.”

The siblings all laugh uproariously at that, and Dean is saved from trying to not sound like the most awkward human being alive by the very nice waitress bringing the checks.

“Who’s paying?” Balthazar looks from Cas to Dean, like he already knows the answer. Dean feels the familiar pit in his stomach, the familiar sensation like he’s moving and his stomach is staying firmly in place. He could afford it, probably. He’s not fucking broke, like this smarmy fucking asshole is implying. He grabs the bill before Cas can move, and he can feel Cas’ eyes on him.

Holy fuck.

Okay. Maybe he can’t afford this.

Cas slides the smooth leather billfold out of his hands, Dean’s starting to go numb.

“It’s my turn, remember?”

Balthazar laughs and Dean’s hands curl into fists under the table, and he’s stopped from making this very nice restaurant into an actual bar brawl by Cas.

“I’m sorry, did you want to pick up the tab this time, Balthazar? Since you refuse to pay on your own.”

The rest of the table snickers quietly at Cas’ words and Balthazar turns beet red. Prick.

“Didn’t mean to offend,” Balthazar says, clearly not used to Cas calling him out when he, in Dean’s opinion, roundly deserved it.

“Then learn to keep your mouth shut,” Cas smiles sweetly, in a way that makes Dean almost beam with pride, because he’s kicking ass and taking names, while Dean can barely string two words together.

Dean ends up hanging out in the corner, waiting for Cas to say his goodbyes so they could escape into the night. Dean hopes he can convince Cas to go back to Brooklyn, he’ll even be grateful to get on the train after this. He needs some distance from Manhattan for a second.

Anna sidles up to him after getting her coat and kissing her brothers goodbye. Dean feels himself tense again. She has that effect on people, he supposes.

“Goodbye Dean,”

“Yeah, bye. Nice to see you.”

“And you, so glad you could come see what our family is all about.”

It sounded like a threat. It probably was.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Anna glances over at Cas, who is talking animatedly to Samandriel, throwing looks over their way occasionally, giving Dean glimpses of his favorite crooked smile.

“Too bad you couldn’t afford the bill Dean, but if I had all those things on your arms and face, I wouldn’t be able to hold down a job either,” Anna’s smile is sickeningly sweet, covering up the poison of her words to Cas, who can’t hear them, with a smile, “You don’t deserve him, and I think he’ll realize that, so don’t get to comfortable in that apartment on Park Avenue.”

Dean is so stunned by the words that he can’t form a coherent comeback. Because not only is it the shittiest thing he’s heard since high school but it confirms the terrible fear that had curled its hands around Dean’s mind: he is not good enough for Cas. And it wasn’t even true, the tiny voice of reason in his mind screams from the dark corner that Dean had stuffed it: he has a great job, a successful job doing something that he really loves.

Anna walks away before Dean can come up with anything, and even Gadreel’s firm handshake and Samandriel’s small smile aren’t enough to quiet the thoughts of doubt, of inadequacy screaming through his head.

They end up back at the Dean’s apartment which is, mercifully, empty. Cas has a dreamy smile on his face, the kind of smile that Dean doesn’t want to do anything to mess with, but panic is rising in his throat, the sneers of his siblings’ faces etched in his mind. He’s angry, he’s humiliated and he can’t fucking do this anymore.

Dean slams the apartment door behind them and immediately sheds his suit coat.

“That went well,” Cas is still smiling, eyes bright, trailing over Dean’s exposed skin. 

“Did it?”

“Yeah,” Cas’ brows knit together, he’s confused. Dean doesn’t blame him.

It’s like holding water in between his fingers. There’s no way he can hold on. He should have known, you know, he should have known this was coming because good things aren’t just good, there’s always a flip side. Cas is looking at him, confusion written all over his face, but Dean, he can’t do this. He can’t.

He can feel himself picking a fight, the kind of fight you can’t come back from.

“I thought you said you liked hanging around them?”

“I do, they’re my family.”

“So are all the insults and shitty remarks just a top-tax bracket way of showing love?”

Cas sighs, his hands settling on his hips, still wearing his long coat.

“What did they say to you?”

Dean thinks of the words that Anna hissed in his ear. They were true, he wouldn’t mention them.

“Just the way they talk down to me? You’re just gonna roll over and let that fucking happen?”

“I didn’t realize they were-”

“Fucking save it. It’s pretty fucking clear they didn’t like me. good thing that went both ways.”

He’s so angry, he’s angry at Cas, angry at the situation he’s been put in, angry at his friends, angry that he’s a dropout tattoo artist that can never, ever be good enough for someone like Cas, someone in the top of the tax bracket with his ten million dollar apartment and his messy dark hair and his tan skin and those biceps that make Dean weak and his laugh and the way he makes noises at the back of his throat when Dean’s mouth is around his cock.

“Tell me what’s wrong? What happened? If we talk we can fix it, but if you’re going to be huffy and silent there’s not much that I can do.”

Dean clenches his fingers together, making a white-knuckled fist with his hand. He grips, releases, trying to remember how to breathe.

He doesn’t say anything.

“Dean.”

Dean looks at the linoleum floor. He won’t meet Cas’ eyes.

Cas has his arms crossed now, staring at Dean from across the kitchen. Dean finds himself leaning against the counter, holding onto it for dear life, because he had to be able to hold onto something, since he was being thrown back and forth by the waves of the roiling water that was his life.

“What is going on with you? You hate my siblings, apparently the dinner was awful, and now you’re acting like a petulant child.”

“So what if I am?”

“You’re an adult, not a teenager, I’m not dating a teenager, now if you would get your head out of your ass and talk to me we-”

“You and I don’t fucking work in the real world.”

The words tumble from Dean before he can stop them, the carefully constructed barriers of his insecurities when it came to Cas blown up by the bomb that Anna had whispered sweetly in his ear. They were right, they were all right. Dean was a dropout fucking tattoo artist from middle America, with secrets that he kept buried so deep in his heart that not even Cas could uncover them, and if he ever found out? Dean didn’t want to wait for that fight, for those realizations, for Cas’ family to figure that out.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were on Mars.”

The edge of anger to Cas’ voice is unmissable, but Dean still refuses to look at him. If he looked at him, he would lose his nerve, which was already hanging by the thinnest of thin threads, one breath of doubt and it would break.

“What do you want from me?” the words come from Dean’s gut, rising, burning up his throat like bile, “You, you’re just like them. Like all those people that Sam works with, the people that judge me at your galas and your gallery openings. Your family, your friends. You’re just like them. You don’t fucking want me long term. I’m convenient to you, I don’t bring you the problems that your social circle does, and you’re just here to fucking take advantage of me.”

Castiel is staring at him, lips slightly parted, eyes narrowed, a vision in a trench coat that cost more than Dean’s whole life. 

“You think I’m taking advantage of you?”

Dean, absurdly, thinks of that stupid fucking painting in Cas’ apartment, he thinks of the way, in his dreams, he’s seen this group of people at the back of the line, letting the lesser soldiers throw themselves to the monster, letting them, him, die, and he thinks that that’s Cas. Cas’ family, his friends, the people that look at Dean like he’s less than, just a dropout tattoo artist covered in inky splotches, and he can’t do this. He can’t do this, because one day Cas won’t be behind the line, he’ll be the monster that crushes Dean’s ribs like they’re nothing.

“That’s what all you people do. You fuck over people like me and then walk away like it’s nothing.”

He’s lying. Cas didn’t treat him like that. He hates himself for not letting himself be happy, but being happy now can get you hurt in the long run, and he’s a control freak, he has to call the shots.

“And when have I ever treated you like you’re nothing? Why are you projecting all of this onto me?”

Dean can’t use his words, he can’t honestly communicate because that would mean getting in too deep, admitting to Cas just how he felt about him and then putting himself right in the center of the dartboard, begging to get hurt. He can’t get his heart broken again, so this time he’ll have to do the breaking. He’s done that before. He can do it again.

“Because you’re the problem here. The common denominator of all my goddamn problems. Your money, your family, your stupid huge fucking apartment on Park, the neighbors you have that judge me when they see me, everything is the problem.”

The space between them is unreachable. Dean has succeeded in putting an ocean between them. Cas closes his eyes in the aftermath of Dean’s words, thrown at him with the intent to cut and slice and push and push and push away. Cas’ shoulders drop, and then he looks up at Dean, pain in his eyes.

“You can’t even look at me.”

Dean responds by looking him in the face, and damn if it didn’t make his resolve almost crumble into nothing. But he refuses to break. He makes his eyes cold, unwelcoming, one final shove to make sure Cas didn’t want him anymore, because he was terrified at how much he wanted Cas.

The hunch in Cas’ shoulders vanishes, replaced by hard, cold, steel-like resolve. He’s taller now, dwarfing Dean, who’s curled protectively around his heart, self-sabotaging, not allowing anyone to break what was already shattered.

“Fine,” he says, “fine, Dean. You don’t want me around? That’s just fine, but you don’t have to spit insults at me, especially things that aren’t true. But, as usual, I can’t change your stubborn mind. I can’t make you see that I care about you, that my monetary situation and how anyone else feels about you is a nonfactor to me. I won’t stay here where I’m not welcome.”

He starts to make a move towards the door, and Dean wants, with all his heart to stop him to bring him back, wrap him in his arms and just stay there, but he’s frozen in place, held back by his fear and his doubt and his fucking inadequacy, and when Cas turns around, staring at him, and it’s written all over his face that he wants Dean to stop him, to call him back, Dean says nothing. 

“Goodbye Dean.”

He lets Cas walk out the door, the thud of it closing echoing in his ears as he leans against the counter, unable to move.

________________________

He doesn’t know how long he stands there. It could be ten minutes or ten hours, but Charlie and Sam and Eileen bang through the door, and when Sam rounds the corner to the kitchen and sees him, the smile drops off his face immediately, replaced instead by fear.

“Dean? What happened?”

He doesn’t think he can speak, he feels like Cas took his voice when he walked out the door. All those months of openness, of emotional honesty, they were put into the tiny box where they belonged, and Dean was taken back to the person he used to be: unattached, uncaring.

“Cas and I broke up,” the words don’t send him doubling over, as he had expected. 

Sam and Charlie don’t look sad, they look angry, which throws Dean for a loop, it’s not what he was expecting.

“What did you do?” Sam asks accusingly, and the sting of his anger is easier for Dean to process. It’s easy to be angry because the alternative might kill him.

“Why do you assume it’s my fault?” he spits back, releasing the counter. His fingers are numb.

“Why would you break up with Cas?” Charlie’s voice is small, unlike herself, and Dean feels guilty.

“I didn’t break up with him. He broke up with me.”

“What did you say to him?”

Dean decides, against his better judgement, to be honest.

“Because if I didn’t, if I didn’t tell him we didn’t work then he was going to break my heart.”

Sam and Charlie stare at him, disbelieving and clearly angry, and Dean wants to hunch into himself again, because he didn’t want to think this was a mistake. What the hell was he going to do if this was a mistake?

“You don’t make any fucking sense, Dean,” Sam is shaking now, “You were so goddamn happy, and you had to go and ruin it just in case it didn’t work out. I feel sorry for you.”

Somehow, those are the words that hurt the worst.

Dean doesn’t say anything else, he just turns on his heel and slams the door to his bedroom, where it was dark and quiet and no one would bother him. He thinks he needs to wash his sheets, because the other side of the bed still smells like Cas, and if he falls asleep on the wrong side, clutching a pillow and trying to keep the realization that he had maybe majorly fucked up at bay, that’s no one else’s business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmaooooo that THIS is the chapter that gets posted on Valentine's Day. So uh yeah, this would be the angst I've been referring too, and my boy Dean is gonna have to do some serious growing amiright? In spite of the ~angst~ I hope you guys enjoy, and I'd love to talk about it! :)


	13. Domestic Sinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The truth is, sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it." - Brokeback Mountain

Sam doesn’t speak to him for days after Cas breaks up with him, and Charlie looks at him with nothing but heartbreak in her eyes. The hole where Cas used to be is everywhere, everywhere Dean looks. From the empty side of the bed to getting one less order at their favorite Chinese place to the silence of his phone and the way he doesn’t have anyone to talk to at night. He spend the first few days after holed up in the apartment, avoiding anything that had a relationship, he ends up watching The Chef Show four times in a row, just for white noise. He draws, crumpled up and half torn papers littering the floor, ideas that he can’t finish, because his brain always gives him something that ends up reminding him of…well, anyway.

He doesn’t look in the mirror.

Sam stays with Eileen. The apartment is lonely, so Dean is left to drown in the thoughts of his inadequacy, going back and forth. Sometimes, he thought it was better like this, Cas didn’t need to know why he was so damn broken beyond repair, why he didn’t deserve someone like Cas, why Cas was far far better off without him. And then, sometimes, usually when he was trying to sleep, Dean was hit over and over with the realization that the one solid and steady relationship he had ever had in his life was over and it was his fault…again.

He drinks nearly a bottle of whiskey that night, considers drunk texting Cas, dismisses it as pathetic, stares at his phone until he passes out, dreams of the painting that may have ruined his life.

After the hangover releases him (three or so days later), he makes the decision. He refuses to talk about it, shutting himself inside his bubble and his work. Even when Sam eventually comes back, the prickliness and the anger wearing away with weeks and weeks of time, Dean doesn’t feel like he’s himself anymore. Too often, he feels like he’s someone else, until he has the needle on someone’s skin, that’s the only time he feels grounded.

He books so many consultations and appointments that the others keep telling him to slow down. He never has a second of downtime, taking every walk-in, greeting every client with a smile on his face. It’s easy not to think about anything else when he’s got his customer service voice in full-force, or when he’s making clean, dark lines of ink on someone’s skin, listening to them chatter and the dull thrum of music that beat throughout the shop.

Pamela and Benny are more attentive than usual, asking him round for dinner, having him spend more time with Celeste, and Dean is grateful because, in these moments, whether he’s having a quiet dinner with Pamela, The Ramones spilling from her record player, or playing pirates with Celeste, he’s allowed to just be. He doesn’t have to try and be anything other than he is, which he was doing too much of before. That was probably part of the problem, then again.

He sees Cas everywhere, which, when he mentions to Charlie, she tries to cheer him up by telling him that that’s exactly how Bella Swan sees her vampire boyfriend everywhere when they break up in the second _Twilight_ book. She makes him watch the movie and Dean pretends to gag the whole gag through, it makes him feel a little bit more like himself, but the problem remained that she got him back in the end, he wasn’t going to get that lucky.

They pass each other on the street once, a few weeks after Dean managed to ruin his own life. It’s in the middle of a heat wave, and Dean is heading towards the grocery store to buy some much needed ice for their beer at the shop. The day is nice, despite the heat, and Dean loses himself in a moment when a breeze rolls through and he closes his eyes, inhales, and manages to slam right into someone walking down the sidewalk.

“Jesus, sorry man, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” Dean bends down to pick up the guy’s bag, coffee spilled all over the sidewalk that there’s obviously no saving. He’s so busy trying to get this guy’s life back in order that he doesn’t realize that he recognizes the bag and the coffee tumbler and the coffee-covered shoes until he’s staring right at Cas. He’s dressed in slacks and a button down shirt, probably coming from a work thing. How is it, Dean finds himself wondering, that he lives in one of the biggest cities in the country and he can still run into the one person on earth that he simultaneously wants to be twenty miles away from and right next to? Fuck New York, the smallest biggest city in the world.

“Oh,” great, that’s good Dean, nice, “Hey.”

“Hello Dean,” Cas won’t look at him, he won’t meet his eyes, even though that is quite literally the only thing Dean wants in the world. It was their connection, the eyes, and Dean wanted to see Cas the way he had seen him so many times. But no such luck. Cas pulls the bag from Dean’s hands, takes his tumbler carefully, so carefully, so their fingers don’t touch, and slides away from Dean, not looking back as he speed-walks down the cobblestone sidewalk.

Dean watches him until he’s long gone, nothing but a shadow in the distance, recognizable because Dean’s eyes always went directly to him, no matter how far apart they were. He has no idea how long he stands there, rooted to the spot where he had collided with Cas, coffee seeping into his socks from the Converse he had decided to wear that day, the cold on his feet reminding him distantly that he was, in fact, still alive. The world keeps spinning around him, much to his dismay, and people swerve around him on the sidewalk, giving him dirty looks that he ignores.

Eventually, after much deliberation whether or not he should simply become a statue exactly where he was standing, he uproots himself and gets the ice, returning to the shop with a smile on his face that they can all see through, but when asked about it, he does what he’s always done best, he pushes it away, turns his head, makes a joke. It’s easier that way. It’s easier that way. It’s easier that way.

The encounter with Cas on the street lasts only a few seconds, a blip on the radar, something that most people would surely forget when they went to sleep that night, the sun rising on a new day, but it haunts Dean for much longer than it probably should, and each time he thinks of Cas refusing to look at him, of how deliberately he made sure that they didn’t touch, he felt himself sleeping deeper into the pit of inadequacy that he had dug himself, burying himself to the neck, the eyes, the hairline, so that maybe one day he wouldn’t have to be seen anymore.

“You’ve gotta stop,” Charlie tells him, emphatically, thirty-four days after he and Cas had broken up, eleven days since he had run into him on the sidewalk. The shop’s empty, and Dean’s shamelessly moping, listening to the angsty playlist he made on Spotify, aptly named “heartbreak playlist.” There isn’t even one classic rock song on it, which probably tipped the rest of them off.

“How do you mean?”

Charlie approaches Dean, puts her hands on his shoulders, looking at him seriously, Benny and Pamela watching from the other side of the shop, all of them wondering whether this was going to be serious or a meme.

“You are spiraling and it’s driving me insane. You gotta snap out of it.”

Dean breaks eye contact with her, afraid that if he looks longer he’ll realize that she’s right.

“Yeah, okay.”

“No, you don’t get to ‘yeah, okay’ me right now, this whole weird thing you have going on that, since you got broken up with, you need to just drown in your feelings at all times always. But like, babe, you aren’t special because you got broken up with.”

Dean hears Benny whistle quietly and sees Pamela’s jaw drop. Charlie was a badass, but was usually the friend that coddled and comforted rather than hitting with hard truths. 

“What?”

“I love you, we all do, but you constantly listening to the same four songs and staring out the window and not eating or talking and that day you came back with coffee on your shoes and acted like you had just been to a funeral? Shit happens, Dean, sometimes it’s awful, but it’s not like he was the only person that ever cared about you your whole life.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, letting Charlie’s words washing over him, cleaning out some of the dark and grimy parts of his heart, the parts he didn’t like to acknowledge.

“And I’m not saying you need to never be sad, that there should be an expiration date on feeling sad or getting in your feelings about this or whatever, but like…Dean. We’re all here, we all love you, and we’re all humans too, not just receptacles for your breakup stuff.”

The words hit harder than any shot of whiskey (of which there had been many) that he had taken in the last thirty-four days. He doesn’t know what to say, he knows she’s right, he had been dumping everything on them, it was all he could fucking talk about, all he could talk about was why they broke up, how Cas’ family had judged him, how fucked up he was, how little he had deserved Cas, how he wanted to drown himself in whiskey and bad TV. He hadn’t even stopped to ask about them, how they were doing, their problems, their issues, their lives. Damn, he really does need to pull himself together a little.

He takes a steadying breath, he feels a little less like a ship swaying in storm-tossed waters, a little more like a lighthouse…maybe a buoy, at least they were anchored.

Before he can stop himself, he buries himself in Charlie’s shoulder, and is soon wrapped up in the best damn group hug anyone could ever ask for.

Dean is a lot of things. He’s broken, he’s fucked up, he’s a kickass tattoo artist, a great cook, a good brother, a (hopefully) good friend. He’s funny and loves bad movies, and he has a family he loves, and that, right now, is enough to pull him out of the shitty chasm of The Breakup. That’s enough.

As time goes on, things get easier. Dean finds a little more of himself with each passing day, surrounded by his family, his friends, the tattoos he creates, the clients he meets. It still, sometimes, feels like he’s being crushed to death by the monster in the painting, but if he allows himself to get crushed, who’s going to annoy Sam and Eileen for the rest of their lives?

The shop is what keeps him grounded on the bad days. It’s so busy that they’ve started only taking appointments most days, but Dean refuses to close to walk ins entirely, even though he hates to be the one stuck in the shop on a weekday night, waiting for the occasional walk-in that wanted a filigree band around their ankle or something, there’s something about walk ins that he doesn’t want to let go of. Maybe it’s that someone with tan skin and broad shoulders and dark hair and blue eyes walked into the shop a few days after Halloween and didn’t want an appointment, but he would never admit that.

His appointments are booked for the next six months, with people begging him over Instagram to open his books for them, swearing up and down that they have the next great project for him. He doesn’t even really need to market himself anymore, the shop’s reputation, and his, have never been better, and he relishes in the idea that he doesn’t have to try so hard, that his work had paid off.

Charlie, Benny, Pamela, and Dean go to dinner one night after the shop closes, sitting outside, taking in the spring whether by the water, the snaking lines of cars they can see across the bridge, the towering, glittering city an omnipresent shadow.

“Okay,” Pamela says in between bites of her veggie burger, “If you got ten million dollars tomorrow, would you go vegan for the rest of your life?”

“Nope,” Dean says immediately, taking a bite of his bacon cheeseburger to prove his point.

“Seriously?” Charlie and Benny ask together.

“I can’t go vegan for the rest of my life. I’m a growing boy.”

“You’re thirty.”

“That’s true, a growing thirty-year-old boy.”

“We’ve thought about it, me and Andrea,” Benny grins at Pamela, “If you’ve got ten mil lying around that would certainly sweeten the pot.”

“I’d do anything for ten million dollars. Literally anything.”

“No you wouldn’t Charlie,” Dean rolls his eyes.

“Oh yeah? Name me one thing I wouldn’t do.”

“You couldn’t give up _Lord of the Rings_ or _Harry Potter_ forever.”

Charlie considers him, eyes narrowed.

“Touché.”

“What can I say, I know you well,” Dean swivels in his chair to look at Pamela again, “And I don’t know why you’re even making this bet. You’re a vegetarian, not a vegan.”

“I’ve been thinking about going vegan.”

“I think the hardest thing for me would be the cheese,” Charlie’s really thinking, considering the obstacles in between her and the ten million dollars that don’t exist.

“You know the money’s not real right?” Benny asks her.

“Not right now, but now that Pamela’s spoken it into existence, a stranger could come up to this table anytime with a suitcase full of money and say ‘Benny Lafitte, this money could be yours, but you must be vegan forever.’”

“I’ve seen weirder in New York.”

Charlie laughs at that, and the chatter is so easy, so comfortable, that Dean realizes that he’s really happy for a second, surrounded by his friends and the ever-present thrumming pulse of the city around him, he’s breathing a little easier.

He only thinks of him around fifty times a day.

One night, when Eileen and Sam were on some kind of plant-based romantic date with their botany club, Charlie and Dean are sprawled in the living room after work, watching _The Two Towers_ (of course) and chatting idly between the battle scenes that commanded their attention.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What’s up?”

“Was I an idiot?”

Charlie rolls over to look at him, taking her eyes away from the screen, her head resting on Dean’s thigh.

“Which time?”

Dean snorts and Charlie’s smile is a little too soft, because she definitely knows exactly what he’s asking.

“You know what I mean.”

Charlie huffs out a breath, looking more pensive than usual in her fuzzy dinosaur pajamas.

“I can’t answer that, only you can.”

“You’re supposed to be able to solve all my problems.”

“I wish I could be your fairy god-lesbian, but alas, I am but a lowly tattoo artist and your best friend.”

They go back to an easy silence for a while, but the question keeps scratching at Dean’s brain, insistent, needing to be answered. Dean had never been good with just being alone with his own thoughts.

“But seriously.”

Charlie sighs again, turning down the volume on the Battle of Helm’s Deep, so you know it’s serious.

“I love you Dean, and you’re the most amazing guy I know, but you’ve never been able to accept that you, who you are, is just enough. And that’s cool we’re all on different journeys you know, but this whole ‘I didn’t deserve him because of what I did when I was sixteen,’ which by the way, is not as big of a stain as you seem to think it is, I don’t know, it’s dumb. But I see you from an outside perspective, I’m not in your head. And if you really think that you’re not good enough for him, for…for that guy in Chicago, for Lisa, I can’t fix it, they can’t fix it, only you can. And I’m not going to sit here and call it easy, it’s not, but you know. Sometimes certain people are worth that.”

Dean is left stunned by her words. Charlie, with all her silliness and her craziness and her love for stupid memes and dabbing ironically even though now she can’t stop, was smarter than she ever let on, and Dean had always known that, but damn, this is the second time in like two weeks.

“You really just dropped that kinda truth bomb on me man.”

“You asked for it, guess you could say I’m,” she dabs, poking herself in the eye, yet soldiering on, “the best.”

Dean shakes his head, grinning as she turns back to the movie. Her words resonate, they hit him in ways that he didn’t know he could be hit. He shouldn’t be surprised, she knows him better than almost anyone, but being called out on your shit in a way that hits this deep, especially by someone who just poked herself in the eye by dabbing too hard, is not anything that he expected.

The shop stays busy, and Dean doesn’t have all that much time to let Charlie’s words eat away at his carefully crafted walls, built in a hot Oklahoma parking lot and a brutal Chicago winter, but when he does have a spare moment, he lets them, like antibodies destroying a virus, take them down, brick by brick, layer by layer, until maybe he feels a little bit freer, a little bit more deserving of the good things in his life. He doesn’t reach out to Cas, even though he wants nothing more than to show him his growth; it would feel disingenuous, like he was fishing for praise, and he just kinda sits back for a while and hopes, in the dead of night, that maybe, by some miracle, this city would bring them back together again, and Dean would have the chance to prove himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey sooo.....sorry about last week lol. Anyway, this chapter is a little shorter, and yes! We have a final chapter count now! Also be aware, there are a few tags that are going to be added in the upcoming chapters (both relationship and actual tags), so keep an eye on them, I don't want to surprise anybody but also don't want to spoil. I would always love to hear from you guys, every single comment is literally so amazing to me and you're all so great :)


	14. Kites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “At the end of the night you’re going to want to say some things, but don’t, don’t ruin it. Just give her a kiss, wish her good luck, and thank her. Thank her for showing you that you can love more than one person in this life.” – Before We Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple of warnings on this chapter: has some light references to underage sex work and sex work in general.

One really really nice Saturday, right in the middle of a glorious September, Dean finds himself standing in Central Park, soaking up the thick yellow beams of light that sink through his t shirt, his toes in the grass, listening to the city bustle around him.

Spending an afternoon in Central Park is one of his favorite ways to spend a summer day. They had closed the shop for the day, and all of them, Dean, Charlie, Pamela, Benny, Andrea, Celeste, even Sam and Eileen were spread out in Strawberry Fields, surrounded by families and couples and single people, the beating heart of New York City. Dean and Pamela had prepared a pretty sick spread for this family picnic. Dean had accommodated for every allergy, and even though groceries in the city were twice as expensive as anywhere else in the entire United States, and he had spent way too much money on these “artisan” groceries because this was their first group picnic in months since the shop had been slammed all summer.

Dean was a slut for a good picnic spread, so they had sandwiches (turkey and swiss, pimento cheese, and veggie for Sam), fancy pickles, fancy cheese from the cheese shop near the shop in Dumbo, chocolates from Jaques Torres (the ice cream shop with the best hot chocolate Dean had ever had), and this sangria stuff that Pamela had made that Dean could absolutely drink gallons of.

They spread out on several blankets, enjoying the sun and the breeze, Celeste already asking if they could fly some kites later, which Dean enthusiastically said yes to. Eileen and Sam were signing quickly back and forth, and Dean had gotten much better at it, so he could sorta understand what they were saying (something about botany, nerds).

It was one of those days were Dean’s Fuckup didn’t hang over his head, like he was sorta starting to heal, even though he could see _his_ building from where they were. He was fucked up, but he had the greatest family you could ever ask for, and when Pamela handed him a red solo cup filled with sangria, he accepted it gratefully, his heart feeling lighter than it had in weeks, months really.

He had been able to dwell on everything over the summer, they had been so busy and Charlie had kept him running all over the city, back to his regular position of “world’s greatest wingman.” Back to the hookup culture that Dean had sworn off after Lisa. It had been a pretty classic summer for them, busy with the shop but staying up all hours on their nights off, Dean sleeping with strangers and seeing dark hair and broad shoulders no matter their body type. Plus, Benny had convinced him to get a septum piercing, which he was pretty hyped about.

“Okay, this looks pretty great,” Charlie says, bending over the basket to look inside, “Is that pimento cheese? Fuck I love you Dean.”

“Yeah and it’s that good pimento cheese from that cheese shop near Kashmir, so they should be pretty great. Also gluten free bread, because, of course.”

“This looks amazing, thank you Dean and Pamela,” Andrea says, lightly squeezing Dean’s hand because she’s amazing.

They all grab paper plates and Dean loads his up with a turkey and swiss sandwich, with those little fancy fucking pickles because they’re his favorite, and grabs a handful of homemade chips from Pamela for good measure.

They laugh and drink and talk, Pamela tells them a story about when she accidentally met Sid Vicious wandering around Brooklyn after getting lost after a show in Detroit. Charlie ends up reenacting an entire Pokemon episode from memory for Celeste, which both Dean and Celeste find extremely amusing, and Sam tells them all about this new client they were getting, some rich guy name Crowley, who flirts with everyone the second he comes in the door.

The picnic is bomb, as expected, and as Benny and Andrea lay back on their picnic blanket, they let Dean take Celeste to get rid of some of her boundless energy. Celeste was beautiful, the perfect split between her mother and father, with Benny’s blue eyes and Andrea’s beautiful bone structure. She was already as smart as Andrea and as kind as Benny, which made Dean her absolute slave, which she knew, so she had started to ask for “dates” with him, where they would go see a movie, eat way too much popcorn and candy, and just tear around the city, Celeste leading the way, pulling Dean by the hand. 

She brought her favorite kite to the park, a pink and blue butterfly, and Dean’s in the middle of getting it ready, making sure the strings aren’t tangled, while Celeste is running circles around him, talking a mile a minute about Frozen 2 and how they should go see the musical together. Dean’s laughing at her jokes and trying to get her to tie her shoes (it doesn’t work) when he sees something that makes his heart drop directly into his shoes, because god knows he’d recognize that dark hair anywhere.

Castiel is sitting about twenty yards away from them, and Dean recognizes Balthazar and Anna next to him, along with some friends that he had met once or twice. He’s facing Dean, he looks a little thinner too, but Dean could definitely be imagining that. He’s wearing those dark blue sweatpants he usually only wears on early morning grocery runs and the Ramones shirt that Pamela had given him for his birthday last year.

They lock eyes. Dean’s heart has somehow, in .5 seconds, gone from his shoes to his throat, because it’s like he’s being torn in half, half of him wants to turn his back, break the eye contact, and the other half wants to go directly up to Cas, fall to his knees, and beg for his forgiveness. Neither option really sounds all that appealing. So, he cops the fuck out, he half smiles, waves, and then turns his attention to Celeste, who’s pulling on his arm, clearly ready to roll with her kite.

It takes Dean a couple of good runs to get the kite going, but once it’s up high enough and is caught by the wind, he puts it in Celeste’s hands and watches her stare up at it soaring with adoration. He loves her with all he has.

“Sometimes I wish this city was bigger,” comes a voice at his shoulder, and Dean immediately thinks _energize_, like he could just vanish to the Enterprise in _Star Trek_. 

No such luck. Castiel is staring at him, already too close. Dean really can’t breathe and a few months of separation has not helped his nerves. Cas is looking at him this time, not like when Dean had slammed into him with his eyes closed, (which, don’t worry, he only thought about that like ten times a week now, he really is getting better). It makes Dean sort of want to disappear. _Growth_, he reminds himself, the voice in his head sounding too much like Charlie.

“Yeah, I get that.”

“How are you?”

“Good. Keeping busy, shop’s been crazy the last few months. How about you?”

It was stilted, so awkward, so unlike what Dean was used to, but then, he had to remind himself, all this shit was his fault anyway.

“Just fine. Enjoying the nice day. Celebrating.”

“What’s the occasion?” he doesn’t really want to know.

“Anna got engaged, and I got a dream job offer.”

“Oh that’s great, good to hear. What’s the job?”

“Full time curator at a large gallery. Very exciting opportunity.”

“That’s amazing, Cas. Congratulations.”

They pause again, unsure of what to say to one another. Celeste runs around them, completely unaware of the bubble of awkwardness between them.

“Dean look!” she cries, as her butterfly kite spins and soars. Dean grins at her and gives her a thumbs up, glancing over to where their picnic was set up and seeing Charlie and Sam watching him. Uh oh. He was caught.

He looks back at Cas, stunningly beautiful as usual, and the words he wants to say get pulled down by the usual suspects; his doubt, his fear.

“Is that Celeste?” Cas asks, watching her run around and around, eyes still glued to the sky.

“Yeah,” Dean can’t help but kinda glow.

“She’s lovely,” and Dean can feel Cas’ eyes on him which makes him feel like he’s under a heat lamp.

“Yeah she, she’s great. Got the whole gang here if you wanna-”

“No, that’s alright. We were just leaving, I just wanted to-”

“I’m sure they’d love to see you, Charlie and Pam especially.”

Cas looks at him, with eyes so achingly blue that Dean feels like he wants to cry.

“I don’t think that would be best. For me that is.”

Dean nods, trying his best to look like all of this was cool and fine which it definitely wasn’t and Cas turning away is definitely making it worse, so Dean, reacting on impulse, catches Cas’ arm, his hand touching the warm, tanned skin.

“Cas, I-”

“Goodbye, Dean.”

Cas smiles at him, a half smile, and Dean wants it like he wants air to breathe, but then Cas turns back to the disapproving Balthazar and Anna, and Cas’ rich friends, still looking down their noses at him, and disappears into the crowds of people. Dean searches for him for way too long, before turning around himself.

“How was that?” Charlie asks as Dean and Celeste return to the group, Celeste breathing hard, hair tangled from running in the wind.

“Yeah, fine,” scratches absently at his arm, deliberately not looking at anyone else.

“Well….that’s bullshit,” says Charlie, making him look her in the eyes.

“It’s fine Charlie.”

“Um, no it isn’t,” Sam pipes up, “what did you say?”

“We talked about the fucking weather, nothing exciting. He got some great job offer and Anna got engaged. Really thrilling.”

Pamela puts a too-knowing hand on his shoulder.

“Sucks kiddo.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Dean makes an effort to pull his face into a smile, “Can we, can we just enjoy the day? That’s what all this was for anyway.”

They humor him and go back to their conversations, including him in everything, but his happy picnic bubble popped as soon as he saw that jawline and that insane hair. He was well and truly fucked, and seeing Cas again just reminded him that he was the sole culprit to his own fucking, and not the good kind.

He glances at Charlie and leans in to whisper to her,

“Couldn’t even say anything like meaningful or anything, what if that was my only shot?”

“Then something better is on the horizon.”

Dean looks towards where Cas had disappeared, and he couldn’t help but think that that was totally impossible.

_________________________

Running into Cas in Central Park was like taking several long strides backwards for Dean. He had been doing well, accepting his mistakes, trying to move forward. He starts dreaming about that stupid fucking painting again, which is just cosmic punishment since it seems to be completely burned into his psyche. Then he starts dreaming about Chicago, and then Cas, and those nights are so bad he almost wishes he could be a cyborg and never have to sleep again, just be powered off to charge every so often, that would be easier.

His sleep deprivation makes him snappy, so everyone ends up walks on eggshells around him, waiting to get chewed out for breathing too loud. It wasn’t fair and Dean knew it, but he hadn’t slept in like two and a half weeks, so he was in a bad mood, sue him.

One cool night in October, several weeks after his run in with Cas, Dean, Charlie, and Sam are spending a rare night together, as Eileen had gone to visit family in Newport. Sam had just gotten home from some dinner thing with his firm, a networking event that meant he was dressed to the nines and completely exhausted, and was already scarfing down the sandwich and fries that Dean had made him when he suddenly sat up and looked at Dean with a fearful intensity that did not at all fit the mood that Dean had been trying to cultivate all day.

“You okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Sam clears his throat and looks from Dean to Charlie. Clearly, they knew something he didn’t.

“Ran into Cas,” Sam says carefully, watching Dean from the kitchen. Dean’s whole body tenses, and Charlie puts a steadying hand on his arm.

“Yeah? How is he?”

“He’s good. He, um. He…”

Dean twists around to look at Sam, unrestrainedly terrified at what he’s about to say.

“He what?”

“He, um,” Sam sighs, shakes his head, Dean wants to die, “You know that job offer? He was telling me about it.”

“Yeah. Cool. Great.”

“You know it’s in LA right? He’s moving to Los Angeles.”

Dean feels like he’s falling through the carpet, falling down a deep ravine, the one he had been so terrified of falling into when it came to Castiel, and now here was the flip side of the coin, and the falling was inevitable.

“When did you see him?” he breathes, unable to look at anything but the edge of the worn and slightly dirty carpet on their floor.

“Yesterday.”

Dean takes a breath, he had lost precious time. What if Cas, what if he was already gone?

“Sam.”

“Dean.”

“Why did you, why would you wait so long? To tell me?”

Sam watches him, no guilt on his face, no defiance, just simple, quiet sadness, which hurts Dean more than anger ever will.

“I wanted to tell you sooner, but you were working and then I was working and it’s not exactly like I could text this to you.”

Dean’s moving like he’s in a dream, like he’s running through this thick molasses, his movements slow but deliberate.

“Where’re you going?” Charlie asks, staring from him to Sam, and Sam just shakes his head, as suspicious of Dean as she is, but he pays them no mind, already pulling on his boots, lacing them up, patting his pockets for his wallet, his phone, his keys. He looks at them both.

“I gotta go.”

“For a guy that hates rom coms, you sure are eager to go running through an airport to find the guy you’re in love with, very Love Actually.”

“I don’t hate rom coms.”

“You see,” Charlie gestures at him, “that’s growth right there.”

“What should I do?”

“I mean, the most fairy-tale esque movie can’t possibly predict what will happen next.”

“I’m going to go find him.”

“We’ll be here when you get back.”

___________________

Dean runs.

He runs to the station, runs to the train, breathes too hard the whole way to the island, runs all the way from the station to Cas’ place on Park.

The security guard knows him by sight, and he calls Cas,

“Mr. Winchester is here to see you, Mr. Novak. Shall I send him up?”

Dean holds his breath, because why the fuck would Cas let him up there, but the guy smiles at him and gives him the code to get to Cas’ floor.

Dean’s a little dumbfounded, still breathing too hard as he steps off the elevator, walking towards Cas’ door like he’s about to face a firing squad, but there’s no turning back now.

He knocks, and when Cas opens the door he feels like he can’t breathe, because he’s just so…. Perfect. He’s got on a ratty t shirt, never worn out of the house, the kind of t shirt that he and Dean would cook breakfast in, singing and dancing around to shitty pop music Dean was afraid to admit that he liked, and the sweatpants that made him look so damn good, no matter what else was going on. His eyebrows are raised in surprise, and Dean has to fight not to just pitch forward and kiss him, because he didn’t deserve that.

“Dean.”

“Cas.”

“What do you want?”

Cas’ eyes are cold, he’s set in the doorway, arms crossed, body hunched away from Dean to protect himself. It breaks Dean’s heart a little.

“I’m uh, I’m glad you’re here.”

“That can’t be the only reason you came to see me. What do you want?” Cas repeats, not softening.

“I lied to you.”

Cas raises an eyebrow, still blocking any view into the apartment with his body.

“Great, add it to the list of things I didn’t want to know.”

“Cas,” Dean takes a deep breath, reminding himself that Cas was worth it, he wasn’t going to explode if he did this, “I lied to you about something that might make the biggest fuck up of my life make a little more sense.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, he just stands there, staring at Dean with those eyes and Dean wants to melt into the floor, he doesn’t want to do this, but it’s like Benny said, relationships that last were never always comfortable, and, despite everything, Dean wanted this one to be one that lasted.

“I told you that we didn’t work in the real world, that your friends hated me and that you and I just move in different circles, but that’s not why, I mean, it was part of it but… I avoid relationships because I’m afraid of them. Everyone leaves me, Cas, and they have a good fucking reason to.”

He thinks about the way they had moved from place to place, wherever John could get a shitty job for a few weeks. Dean had had to drop out of school when he was sixteen, John spending too much money on alcohol, so there was no one else to pay the hotel bills when the manager came knocking.

“My dad kicked me out when I was sixteen. I told you our whole, well, that he was kinda shitty but yeah. He um, well um, he caught me. Caught me and this kid, this guy, from the town we were in, and he kicked me out.”

He remembers of the rage in John’s eyes, the hatred, the anger, the disgust, the revulsion, and he had thrown Dean out onto the asphalt of the Oklahoma parking lot, screaming at him to never come back, Sam, still only twelve, standing behind him, terrified, running for Dean as John held him back, Dean bleeding and clutching his head, the rage from John palpable, even from five feet away.

“Sam um, he managed to slip me a burner phone, that’s the only reason we were able to keep in touch, he-”

Deans heart constricts when he thinks of Sam, who John was always easier on, but he knew how little Sam talked about those years, how he wouldn’t, even to this day, acknowledge their father under any circumstances.

He takes a breath, and sinks into the memories that he had tried, for the better part of ten years, to forget.

______________________

He remembers more than anything else, he remembers the last night, the night that he person he had…the person he had been with had stiffed him for the one hundred and fifty hard earned dollars he was owed. Without that money, he hadn’t been able to afford the fifty dollar rent at the hostel where he had stayed the last few nights, and the shelters were full, overcrowded with the unfortunate in the bitterly cold Chicago air. So Dean, barely sixteen and chilled to the bone, his feet aching from cold as the damp streets soaked through his shoes, riddled with holes now, with only a backpack and two granola bars he had stolen from a gas station the week before, walked around the city, trying his best to find a semi dry place to catch a couple of hours of sleep.

He had always known that life was unkind, his father had told him that when he had shown that anyone’s love, even a parent’s, had conditions. That’s why he was in Chicago in the first place, giving his love to the people that approached him on a street corner, too young to end up in one of those brothels he kept walking past in the red-light district. He splashes a dirty puddle and curses himself for choosing Chicago. Why didn’t he go to Orlando or something? At least there he knew he wouldn’t freeze to death in the streets.

He stumbles, trying not to fall asleep after he realizes that there’s nowhere to go that won’t get him arrested. As much as he desperately wanted somewhere warm, some food, somewhere dry, he knew that if he was arrested John would know, and he would find him. Kill him probably, and, idiot that he was, he wanted to live.

Eventually, at around 4am, he collapses onto the wet and filthy sidewalk, his feet too sluggish to carry him forward anymore. The metal grate would normally have dug into his back, but he was so tired…he even felt warm, which was probably a bad sign at twenty below, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to have to care anymore. He remembers slipping into unconsciousness, his one thought that he hoped Sammy never had to see him like this.

Waking up was agony, because everything hurt and he knew, when he opened his eyes, he knew he would either be in the police station or an emergency room, staring down a criminal record or a hospital bill that he’d never be able to pay back in a million years.

Instead, he finds himself on a tattoo table, recognizing it because of that one TV show where people had been tattooed blindly, he didn’t remember what it was called. This place was clean, bright lights stung his eyes and he blinked rapidly, trying to focus on anything, eyes landing on the man dozing in the chair next to him. He was round, bearded, shorter than Dean, and covered from neck to ankles in tattoos. Dean realizes, looking around, that his feet are bandaged and so stiff that he feels like he may never be able to move them again. He groans involuntarily when he stretches out, and the man stirs, opening his eyes and pushing a dirty baseball cap off of his forehead.

“Good to see you awake, kid,” the man’s voice is gruff, but not unkind, but Dean recoils, unused to being treated like a human, not a commodity to be bought and sold.

“Who’re you?”

“The one who dragged your frozen ass in here and stayed up all night trying to get you to wake up.”

“Dean looks down at himself, dirty from the street, and looks back up at the man, again unused to kindness from anyone, let alone a stranger.

“Why do you care about me?”

The man’s eyes narrow, like he’s going to slap him upside the head.

“Because boy, if I see a kid frozen more than half to death, I can’t leave them to die outside my window.”

Dean’s brain won’t allow him to accept that this is happening, so he makes a move to sit up, and every single muscle in his body scream in protest.

“Take it easy, son,” the man stretches out a hand, and Dean jerks back at the contact, having only really known the kind of touches that are designed to hurt. The man drops his hand, and turns his back to him, picking up a tray and handing it to Dean.

“I don’t ever let people eat in here, but you sure look like you could use it.”

The tray has bread and some of the best smelling soup Dean has ever encountered. Not that he had ever been picky, but he hadn’t eaten in three days and he would have been willing to eat just about anything.

“What’s your name, kid?” the man asks, watching Dean tear into the soup and bread like a man possessed, hunger was a hell of a demon.

“Dean.”

“Your folks stop at Dean?”

“Winchester.”

“Well Dean Winchester, you can stay here for a bit, get your strength up, and then we can move you upstairs to my place.”

Dean balks. No way, he wasn’t going into this random guy’s house of horrors to get his kidney cut out or worse. His fear clearly shows on his face, because the guy turns around and calls behind him,

“Lee! Ash! Get in here!,” he turns back to Dean, “Just so you don’t think I’m gonna murder you or anything. Name’s Bobby Singer, by the way.”

Dean hears thundering steps, following loud, affably arguing voices coming down the out of sight stairwell. Two boys, both around his age, come bursting through the door, with all the manic energy of two tornadoes. The taller one is skinny, a little gangly, maybe older by a year or two, and has an honest to God mullet. The shorter one also has long hair, but it was dark, and he has these clear blue eyes that immediately go to Dean’s face, and he feels himself turning a little red, which was the exact shit that got him thrown out onto the fucking streets.

“Ash, Lee,” Bobby gestures to Dean, who hunches, a little like a caged animal, “This is Dean, he’ll be staying with us awhile.”

“Hi Dean,” the two chorus quietly, seeming to understand that he didn’t want to talk, he wanted to be left alone on this table and never move again, because, though it wasn’t an actual bed, it was the most comfortable thing he had seen in weeks.

“Okay,” Bobby grunts as the two run back up the stairs, back to their loud and boisterous conversation that Dean, despite his exhaustion and fear and remaining hunger, desperately wants to be a part of, “We gotta get you to bed.”

“Why can’t I stay here?” Dean argues, not wanting to be taken anywhere away from windows or doors. Like where lights were red and there was a bed where very bad things could happen.

“Because, I gotta open up shop, someone has to keep us all fed,” Bobby grumbles, but Dean can tell there’s no malice behind it. He stands up from his chair and takes Dean’s dishes from him, stretching out a calloused, tattooed hand, “Come on now, you got a room upstairs and I’ve already got your stuff up there.”

“My stuff?”

“That ratty old backpack? Isn’t much, but it’s yours.”

“Did you take anything?” the words are out of Dean’s mouth before he can stop them. There were things in there that he could never replace, and he trusted no one, not even this guy who was more ink than skin who had probably saved him from freezing to death on a dirty sidewalk. Bobby doesn’t even look angry, just a little sad.

“Didn’t even open it. Now come on, kid. Can you walk?”

Dean’s not sure he can, but there’s no way he’s going to be carried. So, he hobbles his way up the stairs, Bobby keeping a distance, but a reassuring presence nonetheless: he wouldn’t let him fall. When they (finally) get to the top of the stairs, Bobby leads Dean down a hallway, and to a small room with a bed, a desk, a dresser. No bars on the windows. No red lights. Dean’s backpack sits at the end of the bed, stained and dirty and out of place.

“Okay, you’re on your own for a bit. Take a load off, sleep. Bathroom’s down the hall. Holler if you need anything, I’ll be just downstairs.”

“Hey,” Bobby turns at Dean’s call back, “Why are you doing this?”

He pauses, looking at Dean with softer eyes than he had seen in years.

“Because I wish someone had done the same for me. Get some rest now.”

At first, Dean doesn’t rest. He sits, hunched against the cold metal bars of the headboard, fighting sleep that made his eyes itch and ache, begging him to fall asleep in a soft bed for the first time since that hotel in Oklahoma. He had checked his bag the second Bobby had swung the door closed, and had found the gun he had stolen from John before he left, three bullets, his knife, the granola bars, and the last two pictures of his mother that he carried. He breathes a sigh of relief when he finds the photos, worried that they had been taken from him when he was unconscious. 

Finding his things intact made it a little easier to relax, and he slumps down on the pillows, and ends up sleeping for what feels like about three days. When he wakes up, it’s with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in the pitch-black room and looking for a way out. His heart rates slows when his brain catches up with his surroundings, and he remembers Bobby, Ash, Lee, the tattoo shop he had almost frozen to death in front of. He looks around for his backpack, and sees its outline on the floor, still packed and ready to go in case he needed to make a getaway. There’s a dim light coming from underneath the doorframe, and Dean stands, groaning as his muscles protest him moving at all. The door is creaky, but Dean has spent his life knowing how to avoid people if he needed to, especially in cramped spaces, so he eases it open and looks up and down the dark hallway. He sees his goal: the slightly ajar bathroom door to the right, two doors down, and he begins the slow journey, half due to his unwillingness to makes any noise and half due to the fact that he couldn’t run anywhere even if he had wanted to.

The bathroom is tiny and had a shower curtain patterned with seashells, with a matching seashell nightlight glowing dimly by the sink. Not exactly the type of bathroom you’d expect a badass tattoo shop owner to have, but he really was in no position to judge.

He tries to get in and out as quickly and quietly as possible, wincing as the toilet flushed. He had already made too much noise.

He tries to get back into the bedroom without being detected, but he had given himself away with the toiler. Damn his fucking manners. A light flicks on in the room next to him and the door creaks open to reveal the shorter of the two guys his age. Le, he thought that was his name. he was clearly still half asleep, hair sticking up in all directions, and staring a Dean a little like a deer in the headlights, and Dean’s sure he looks the same.

“Hey,” Lee tries, trying to meet Dean’s eyes but Dean’s hunched like an animal again, trying to get away from this, whatever this was, this guy’s kindness, his pretty eyes, the exact thing that had gotten Dean torn away from his family in the first place.

“Hey,” Dean tries to remain calm even though his heart is racing and all he can think about is running as fast as he can to get his backpack and get back into the night, but his body won’t allow that, so he and Lee just stand and stare at each other, the silence might as well have been ten years long, and Dean couldn’t bring himself to break it.

“Sorry man, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“No you…sorry. This is all just, uh, weird to me, I guess.”

“I was the same way when Bobby found me too.”

Dean wants to ask, but then he knew he’s be asked about what he had done to get here, and admitting to someone what he had had to do to survive was not in the cars for the next…forever if he had anything to say about it.

And now there’s another problem, he can feel his weakened legs start to shake under him, and he was not at all confident that he could make it the ten feet to the door of the bedroom, where sweet safety and reprieve and probably more sleep were waiting for him.

“Okay well, goodnight,” he tries to start walking, more like hobbling, back to the bedroom, but he only makes it about two steps before his legs begin to wobble dangerously, and he’s pitching towards the wall, unable to hold his weight. He braces for impact into the walls and on the floor, but he’s caught before he can hit the ground, held up by Lee.

“Whoa man, you look like shit. Like white as a ghost.”

“Sorry,” Dean mumbles. This is so fucking embarrassing.

“Don’t be, dude. We’ve all been there.”

“You have? First time not being able to walk for me.”

“Yeah, probably the first time you’ve had hypothermia too, you get used to it.”

“Oh yeah? You big into getting hypothermia?”

Lee laughs and meets Dean’s eyes. Dean looks away.

“Sure I am, do it once a week.”

He half drags, half carries Dean back to the bedroom and they both collapse on the bed. Dean’s breathing hard, much much harder than anyone who walked ten feet should, but Lee doesn’t seem to notice, he’s looking around the room, eyes finding Dean’s backpack placed strategically by the door.

“You goin somewhere?”

Dean turns red, he hopes that the dim blue neon light of the bar next door hides the blush creeping into his cheeks.

“No just…in case.”

“What do you think we’re gonna do?”

“Come one, like you got taken in here and trusted it right away.”

Lee leans back, his back rest against the wall.

“Yeah, you have a point, it definitely took me week, probably months to trust that they weren’t going to cut out my kidneys and leave me in a bathtub of ice. But I’ve been here for over a year and I still have all my organs, as far as I know, anyway.”

That gets a chuckle out of Dean, and Lee’s eyes brighten at the sound, like he’s trying to impress him, when Dean should be doing the impressing, since he’s the one staying in Lee’s house.

“How’d you get here, anyway?” Dean asks the question against his better judgement. Lee is easy to talk to, and it’s the first time he’s talked to someone without a transaction in place in weeks.

“I was doing some bad shit on the streets. Folks kicked me out for selling stolen stuff, then drugs. I was selling on the street and had just gotten kicked out of the shelter I was staying in when Bobby found me. Probably should’ve kicked my ass into next week, I was dealing in front of the shop, and I’m pretty sure he came out there to beat me bloody, but I guess he saw how old I was and he pulled me inside, cleaned me up, and basically put me on a kinda lockdown until I just ended up staying. Pretty fucked, huh?”

He’s looking at Dean with an edge of fear, a sort of expectation that Dean was going to judge him, and Dean knew that fear, because he expected it all the time too. He would see people walk by him on the street, well-dressed in nice coats and gloves and shoes, and they would look at him, coming out of the red light district with ripped jeans, dirty hair, and a coat that was meant, at best, for winter in Mississippi, and instead of helping, of taking out their Prada wallets and giving him something to kill his empty stomach, they would walk faster, looking over him like we was invisible, like he didn’t even exist.

“Not as bad as me.”

Lee’s eyes widen.

“You kill someone?”

“What? No,” Dean’s eyes start darting around the room, no one knows about this, apart from the strangers that he spent the darkest hours of the night with. Money was a bitch, and those that are desperate for it will do anything to get it, dignity be damned.

“You okay?”

“Yeah I just…I haven’t talked to anyone about it. Only been here for a month or so,” he takes a breath, steadying himself, and then plunges on, “Dad kicked me out. Found me with this guy. We travel a lot so I’m used to getting around when I need to. Hitchhiked my way up here, stole some money from my dad so I had a little to get by one. Shoulda picked anywhere but Chicago, it’s so fucking cold here. I was staying in this shelter and they kicked me out because I was too old or something. So I got desperate, cold, don’t have the winter gear for this place. And I met this guy outside of a bar and he said he knew a way I could earn money. And I took him up on it.”

He breaks off. Lee isn’t judging him, not yet, but if Dean said it out loud, it meant it happened, that it was true.

“You can tell me.”

Lee’s quiet voice is reassuring, warm, something Dean’s not used to. He meets Lee’s eyes, they’re the blue of clear water. Dean takes another breath.

“You know that movie _Pretty Woman_?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Julia Roberts.”

Dean expects Lee to stand up, put distance between them, give him the judgmental eyes that he’s become accustomed to. But Lee doesn’t, he looks at Dean with nothing but acceptance.

“Sucks man. Been there.”

“You too?”

“Not that, but selling drugs? Also not a great look. Both of em’ll land you in jail too. I get it, it’s cold, you’re desperate. I’ve been there.”

Dean huffs a quiet laugh, ignoring the protests of his ribs.

“I really thought you’d get up and run out the door.”

Lee smiles, eyes still bright. Dean likes looking at him, he’s not sure why.

“Nah, if Bobby took you in it means you’re a part of the family now.”

“Cool, I’d like that.”

Dean wrenches himself out of the knife-sharp memory, but plunges on, still unable to look at Cas, but he can tell by the set of his hips that he’s listening intently, which is all Dean needs. He just needs Cas to listen.

He spent the next seven years learning everything from Bobby, from starting to tattoo on rinds of fruit, to pigskin from the butcher shop down the block, finally giving his first tattoo to Bobby, a little arrow on the inside of Bobby’s finger. A right of passage, Bobby had said, Lee and Ash had done the same. He had been able to create his own style in Bobby’s shop, keeping up with Sam through cell phone numbers and email addresses that changed every week, lest John catch them.

He had created a family, and had found something else too. Something that started with a kiss in the dark shop the day that Dean turned eighteen. They had become inseparable, the first real love of Dean’s life, and he had been so young that he had run off the cliff headfirst, not caring what was at the bottom, until it was too late to catch himself.

Everything changed when he was twenty-three. He had gotten the call to identify a body in Idaho, the police had found his number in the pocket of a John Doe. Dean had gone alone, insisting on going by himself and kissing Lee goodbye with a little more fervor than usual. Maybe he already knew then, maybe he already had a plan in motion. John Winchester had died falling off of the fifth floor of a parking garage, his body broken and filled with the only thing he loved in the world: the whiskey. Dean had claimed his things, taken the Impala, and left the body, which was in an unmarked grave in Idaho somewhere, and had driven straight down to California in the Impala to see Sam, give him the car, a hug, and cry with him.

He called Bobby from a bus station in middle America, somewhere in Ohio, telling him he wasn’t coming back. He needed a change, he needed somewhere different, and how many protagonists in shitty rom coms said that about New York? He told Bobby not to tell Lee where he went, that he needed a clean break. The guilt of that kept him up for years.

He had seen a future with Lisa, but with Lee? They lived only in the moment, whether that moment was tattooing or tasting the best burgers they could find or singing too loud on a road trip or dancing in their apartment or fucking or kissing. There were, there had never been any expectations with Lee, he had been, for the first time in his life, allowed to just be, and didn’t have to put on his persona, the cool guy persona that guarded his heart carefully and protected him from the angers in the dirty sheets and peeling paint in the hotels he had stayed in too often.

Lee knew, he knew and he never judged him for it. It was unspoken, a part of his past that he worked to cover up with ink, and Lee never pried, but he let Dean work through his issues, bring down his walls at his own pace.

He fell in love with Lee’s bright eyes, the way he laughed when Ash made a stupid joke, the way he held a tattoo gun in his hands, the way his old school style was like magic on the skin, teaching Dean something with every line and color. But Dean hadn’t ever been able to heal from the deep cuts in his past, made by John Winchester with a machete, slicing him beyond repair.

He tells Cas about Bobby calling Ellen for him, about the family he found in the shop in New York, about meeting Lisa, about finally telling Lisa what he had done those dark cold nights in Chicago, where the lights were red and the rooms smelled like cheap perfume and sex and no one cared that he was sixteen, they cared that he did his job and they left a few bills on the bed when they left.

He had finally been man enough to go back to Chicago, three years after he had moved without warning after burying his father. The place was just the same, still spotlessly clean, the walls still complete chaos, the first home that Dean had ever known. Bobby and Ash had greeted him with roars of delight, hard hugs, and a good shot of whiskey, and the ache that he felt at the lack of Lee’s presence was like a freshly opened wound, that stung even worse when he actually walked in, new additions on his skin, some covering the ink that Dean had put on his skin, the shadow of a knife covering Dean’s name Lee had had him put on his wrist when they were nineteen.

He breaks off, thinking of the way Lisa had looked at him when he had finally opened up to her, how disgusted she had been, what an embarrassment he was, and how she had said, “you’re disgusting,” as she had pushed him out the door. He had never asked her when she had met the guy she moved to San Diego with, but he had a pretty good guess when she started looking.

Dean had sworn he would never fall in love like that again. It was too fast, too intense, too all-consuming, not like the deep simmer thing he had with Lisa. See how that worked out? Dean remembered Lee’s eyes, his hair, the way he said Dean’s name, and he had promised himself that he had found something better, and when Lisa had left the cold shores of New York for the perpetually temperate climate of San Diego, it took everything in him to not drive straight through the night, fall to his knees, beg for Lee’s forgiveness. But you move on, you know, that wasn’t his life anymore, that wasn’t Lee’s life, and he moved on with the memory of Lee etched onto his skin: the rose, the letter L on his shoulder blade, the memories as fresh and sharp as if they had been inked on his heart. His skin was his history, and he was unashamed of that, but showing his history, his soul, to all those that met him, that was something he had never gotten used to. So he’d make up stories on their backgrounds. He just really liked roses, he’d say, not telling them that the man that had put the ink on his neck had planned it for weeks, at stenciled it thirteen times, placed it four, had kept him in the chair in one session, only taking breaks to kiss him, to check that he was alright. The rose was a visible piece of his heart that would never really heal, same as Lisa’s delicate name on his ribs that he had never had the heart to get covered. He was terrified of falling back into that, of Cas becoming a piece of his history, a memory on his skin that he would never be allowed to forget.

Another breath, pulling him out of the twisted, tangled memories.

Cas hasn’t said anything to all this, but Dean isn’t done yet, because if you’re going to spill the deep dark secrets of your past, might as well spill everything that’s on your mind.

“I’m afraid of how I feel about you, and I’m afraid I’m going to mess everything up for you, I’ll mess something up in front of your clients, your friends, your family. I’m just a fucking tattoo artist from bumfuck Kansas, and you, you’re an insanely rich art dealer who has no business being with me. At least that’s what I told myself. And I was wrong, Cas, because I need you so much it makes my fucking chest hurt. And I’m sorry for what I said. And I know that this doesn’t change anything, I’m not asking you to forgive me, I just wanted to clear the air, because I can’t live with myself if I don’t give you some kind of explanation here.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, he just watches Dean, and Dean doesn’t know what’s worse, laying it all out on the line or the silence that follows.

“Thank you, Dean. I appreciate you telling me.”

“So, I just, I wanted to-”

“Cas?”

And then, you know those movies where the character realizes the other person has moved on, and they look like they got stabbed in the heart? Yeah, Dean hadn’t understood that until now. Behind Cas comes some very tall, very handsome dude and Dean literally feels like the biggest idiot in the whole world, because of course Cas already moved on, of course this was all the stupidest thing he’d ever done. He can’t even look at the guy, who’s standing behind Cas and looking at Dean with interest, he can’t look at Cas, who looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t quite know what to say, so Dean’ll save him the trouble.

“I, uh, I appreciate you listening, Cas. And um…yeah. Yeah.”

Dean doesn’t let himself turn to take one last look at Cas as he walks away, because he doesn’t think his broken heart could take any modicum of affection between Cas and that guy. He ends up walking way out of his way, to a train station near the end of the island, not taking in anything around him except for the thud of his boots and how cold his nose was getting. Maybe this would be a healing experience for him, to be able to be honest with a partner, ex-partner, that is. Maybe his fuckup with Cas would lead to healthier relationships in the future. But right now, he doesn’t feel like he’ll ever get the feeling he had with Cas ever again.

He finally decides he should probably get home, Charlie and Sam were waiting and he had felt his phone buzz more than a couple of times in his pocket. He sways with the train, taking him back to Brooklyn, away from Manhattan, a thousand miles away from Cas.

“Where the hell have you been? It’s one in the morning.” Charlie and Sam say in unison as he walks in the door of the apartment, which warm and homey and also completely alien, like Dean doesn’t recognize anything in there.

“Out walking,” Dean says shortly, trying to make a beeline directly for his room.

“Oh no no no, come back here,” Charlie grabs his hand, pulling him back, “What happened? Did you see him?”

“Yeah I saw him. Laid it all out. Right as some dude came up behind him.”

There’s a little pause, Charlie and Sam exchange glances.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Sorry you’re an idiot? Yeah, me too.”

“Dean,” Charlie sits down on one side of the couch, Sam on the other, squishing him in a sandwich, “At least you went over there, now you don’t have to do the what if dance forever. I’m proud of you, we both are.”

“We are,” Sam puts a huge arm around his shoulders, and Dean does not want to, he will not cry, “This sucks and it really hurts, but you’re going to find someone that deserves you, and if it’s not Cas then that’s his loss.”

“I’m the one that’s supposed to give advice, I’m the big brother.”

“Yeah, you are. You also deserve to be happy, though.”

Fuck. Here come the waterworks he’s been pushing down for the last six months. It’s one of those cries that ends up actually hurting, because you cry out the pain, the anger, the pent-up sadness, everything, until you’re left with puffy, stinging eyes and a heaving, aching chest. Charlie and Sam are just there, holding him in place, as he lets himself cry, which John had once told him made him less of a man. But then again, he also had also called Dean every slur in the book when he had found out he had kissed a boy at school when he was sixteen. He wasn’t the role model Dean wanted anymore.

“I’m an idiot,” he says, wiping his face on his sleeve.

“Yeah, we know, and we love you anyway,” Charlie whispers, drawing a half-sob, half-laugh out of Dean.

“Guy fucking called him Cas,” Dean says, starting to cry a little again, “That’s my name for him, he said no one called him that before me, and now he’s probably fucking introducing himself to people like that.”

Charlie hums sympathetically.

“I’m never gonna find anyone, I’m such a fucking fuckup.”

“Okay, we’re not going to do that, don’t spiral on us.”

Dean leans back into the worn fabric of the couch, struggling to find breath, struggling to think of anything but Cas and that guy. The image of them is burned into his mind, like someone branded it to his subconscious, and he can’t close his eyes without seeing them, without hearing him call him Cas.

“So, what next?” Sam asks, detaching himself from Dean to grab beers out of the fridge.

“I just want to lie around and be miserable and watch crap movies and eat crap food.”

“That can definitely be arranged,” Sam tosses the PlayStation controller to Dean and collapses into his chair, while Charlie curls closer to Dean, holding his hand, and Dean is grateful for her, grateful for Sam, in spite of it all, he’s glad they made him go over there, glad that he can finally take a step forward.

They end up staying up all night, getting semi buzzed on beer, and getting Postmates from this Tex-Mex restaurant that Dean simply adores, and he feels a little better and a little more like himself once he’s five beers in and has absolutely housed his steak burrito, watching _The Office_ (Dean’s security blanket show), and laughing more than he had in weeks.

It was a little bit lighter in his chest now, with that whole being honest thing. Maybe it wasn’t so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo, this chapter sorta got away from me in length. The flashback was definitely something I grappled with, and I've been debating for weeks if I should put it in, but ultimately I decided I liked it a little too much to let it go lol. Anyway, there are some new tags, and, of course, comments are the things that keep me alive so I'd love to know what you think :)


	15. Under the Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wear your heart on your skin in this life.” ― Sylvia Plath

The next few weeks are awful, but less awful than Dean honestly expected when he had his heart ripped out by the roots. He gets lost in work again, booking himself completely six days a week, and spending every available minute with Charlie or Sam. Tattooing is really becoming his security blanket, which is definitely not a healthy coping mechanism, but at least it brings in serious coin. Being alone, however, that was when he was at his worst. He isnt’t sleeping, up until the sun came up most nights, drawing at his desk and listening to his “heartbreak playlist” on Spotify. He looks at his last texts to Cas almost obsessively during these hours, praying, begging that he might see the three little dots pop up, that Cas might reach out, but he never does. Again…not healthy. Sam sits him down at least once a week to tells him he needs to talk to someone, which is always met with,

“I talk to people every day, Sam.”

This proclamation is met, in turn, with a colossal bitchface and a sort of argument that ended with Sam rolling his eyes and relenting. Dean is trying to heal, and if healing for him meant drinking too much and looking like Dracula with the shadows under his eyes, that is his prerogative.

It isn’t all bad though, he’s actually making progress, even though the shadows under his eyes made it seem like he isn’t. He’s spending a lot more time trying to be honest about how he feels, which sucks, but he’s told by Charlie that it’ll make him feel better. They go out of Halloween and Dean only wallows in self-pity for twenty minutes and then gets rip roaring drunk with Charlie and Eileen, Sam having to drag them all home at 2am, singing loudly on the train and making Sam turn beet red. Also, he’s able to go to his favorite pie place now without wanting to run off the top of the Empire State building. So, you know, growth.

Dean finds himself, one night in early November, alone in the shop again. They really needed to close walk ins and just become an outright studio, by appointment only, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to do it, so here he is, shamelessly watching Youtube on his phone and counting the minutes until he could go home. He loved the shop being busy but the boredom definitely crept in when he was on his own, and it didn’t help that the last fall night he was totally on his own was when…well, it was better if he didn’t think about that, part of his new coping system, change the subject in his mind if Cas came across it.

The bell tinkles and Dean sighs. Damn. Ten minutes until closing too.

“Be with you in a second,” he calls towards the front, sticking his phone in his pocket and looking around to make sure the place looked presentable. It did, of course, because Dean was always here to keep a clean shop. He heads towards the front and almost drops dead right there, because there was Cas, dressed almost identically to how he had been a year ago, ripped jeans, a t shirt, that fucking coat. He looks at Dean, looking wary but not cold anymore, and Dean wants to run out the door right then and there, because not only was he terrified of getting hurt again, he was terrified of messing this up again.

“Hi.”

“Hello Dean,” fuck Dean missed him.

“Can I, uh, can I help you?”

This was not at all smooth but Dean didn’t know how else to handle it. Barring falling to his knees and begging to get Cas back, which would be a bad look.

“You can, at least, I hope you can. I’m looking to get something done.”

Dean definitely looks like a slack-jawed idiot now, but he’s gonna play along, see where this takes them.

“Yeah, for sure. What’re you looking at?”

Cas pulls out a picture from his pocket, which is a little crumpled, like he had been clutching it on his way here. It’s a picture from Dean’s portfolio, a sketch that he had given Cas when Cas had taken a liking to it a few months before. A silhouette with wings, shadowy and indistinct, with red dripping from the wings themselves. A fallen angel. He remembered when Cas had seen it on his desk, bending over to examine it as he searched around for the boxers Dean had thrown across the room in his haste. 

“I love this.”

“Do you?” Dean had come up behind him and laced his hands around Cas’ warm stomach, resting his chin on his bare shoulder, “Came to me last night. Spent way too long on those wings, I never do shit like that.”

Cas couldn’t take his eyes off it, long fingers delicately tracing the ink on the paper, dark contrasting with red and white.

“You can take it if you want, Cas. I was just going to toss it in my book at the shop, but if you like it you keep it.”

“Oh no, Dean I don’t want to take-”

“Relax sweetheart, you can take it. If you love it then I want you to have it,” and Dean had folded it up carefully and pressed it into Cas’ hand, and Cas had given him the radiant smile that had settled in his chest like someone had slipped a little bit of the sun there.

“This?”

“Yes, I’ve thought about it for quite a while, and this is what I want.”

His eyes are so fucking blue, how did he forget that?

“I, where did you want it, or whereabouts were you thinking?” Dean feels like he can’t breathe, like he should tell Cas that he’s sorry, or tell him to get the fuck out, or make some joke about that tall handsome guy Dean had seen at Cas’ apartment, something, but he can’t bring himself to do it, this feels like something a little too important for something like that.

“I was thinking on my ribs, left side,” he’s studying Dean the way he used to, his eyes looking right through him like he used to, Dean’s going crazy.

“That can be a tough spot for a first tattoo, especially with all the black. I think it’d be a good spot but I just want to make sure you know what you’re in for.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s where I want it. I can take it.”

“I wasn’t saying, yeah, sure. Let me get my book and I get you scheduled in. Wait right now is usually three to four-”

“I’d like to do it now. Tonight.”

Dean stares at Cas, who is, of course, completely serious. The rational part of his brain is telling, screaming at him to insist on an appointment, when the shop was busy and there were other people there and they had both had the time to think about this and they weren’t doing this when this is the first time they had seen each other in weeks, especially when Cas just shows up out of the blue, wanting an impulse tattoo from him in the middle of the night.

“It’ll take a while,” Dean hedges, knowing what Cas is going to say anyway.

“I have time.”

Dean pauses, unable to take his eyes off Cas, because what does this mean? That Cas wants his art on his body forever? Is it forgiveness? He doesn’t know.

“Okay. But you have to answer something for me first.”

“Okay.”

“Why? Why now? And why me? Why tonight?”

“There’s no one’s work I would rather have on my body, no one I trust more.”

Dean knows he’s avoiding the why now, but he sighs and goes to the door, turning the sign to “closed,” thinking that he’s an idiot, not like that’s something he didn’t already know.

“Okay. It’ll take me a few to get ready, I’ll have to stencil it.”

“I’m in no hurry,” Cas sinks down on the sofa for good measure. He doesn’t look up at Dean again, even when Dean hands him the waivers and forms to fill out, and Dean sighs, heading towards the sketching room and starting to stencil the piece that Cas had given him. He takes his time with it, making sure every line and every detail is perfect, just as he would for any client, but the stakes with this one feel higher, like he absolutely has to get this right, and maybe, by some miracle, he’ll be able to repair things with Cas, even to just be friends.

Cas is flipping idly through a magazine when Dean comes back, looking about as nonchalant as you can get when you’re about to get a tattoo from your ex.

“You ready to see?”

“I am.”

Dean hands him the sketch, and even through the mask that Cas is wearing, Dean can tell he loves it.

“It’s perfect.”

“You’re sure? I’ll make the stencil now, but if you-”

“It’s perfect,” Cas reiterates and Dean smiles at him.

“Okay, one second then. If you’re done with those forms-”

Cas stands and hands him his completed forms, which Dean scans through.

“I’ll just need your ID for a sec.”

Cas produces his license from his wallet and hands it to Dean, in a way that makes sure their hands don’t touch, and Dean aches a little.

He makes the copies he needs, hands Cas his ID back, and leads him back to his station, going through and doing a disinfectant wipe down of all the surfaces, getting his inks in order, trying as hard as he can to not pay attention to Cas leaning against the wall, his legs and arms crossed casually, looking like an absolute vision.

“Okay,” Dean is definitely nervous now, the prospect of tattooing Cas, of putting his work on Cas’ body, on having Cas so close to him, was enough to send him into a full-blown panic. But he takes a deep breath, putting on his professional face, and turns to look at Cas.

“Okay, since this is your first tattoo, just a couple of things. Ribs are generally kinda bad, but if it’s too much just let me know, and we can take breaks, whatever you need. I’ve always thought it sorta feels like a hot mechanical pencil, if that helps you at all. Also, you’ll be tempted to tense up, but try to just relax, it’s easier that way. You ready?”

Cas’ face betrays a little tiny bit of nervousness now, he shifts his weight, looking at the machine next to Dean.

“I think so, yes.”

As Cas sits down, Dean impulsively covers his hand with his own.

“I’ve got you, I’m here the whole way.”

Cas smiles a little at him, and then strips off his shirt in a way that makes Dean wish they were in either of their respective apartments right now, but then again, that’s not something that he’s allowed to want anymore anyway. He’s careful with the transfer paper, and then looks up at Cas,

“Go check it out and see if you like the placement. We can redo if you need something tweaked.”

Cas walks over to the mirror, and he stares at the stencil for what feels like ten minutes, before he turns to Dean and looks at him, really looks at him.

“It’s perfect, Dean.”

The sound of his name coming from Cas in that soft way is enough to make him need several drinks, but instead he smiles and says,

“Let’s get started, just let me know if you need anything.”

He sees a little of the tension in Cas’ shoulders fade, and he’s glad that that didn’t make him more nervous. Dean picks up his phone and puts on some music, because he’s a masochist, he chooses the breakup playlist he hasn’t been able to stop listening to, but when he sits down and puts on his gloves, he forgets his nerves and the fact that he’s touching Cas, and thinks about the piece that he’s creating. When the needle hits his skin, Cas inhales a little, closing his eyes.

“We’ll go slow, small lines first, just to get you used to it.”

It takes Dean the better part of two hours to do the outline, and he knows that the worst is going to be coloring the wings and the silhouette. So he looks over at Cas’ face, whose eyes are not closed anymore but are watching Dean, and he meets them, like trees meeting water, and smiles.

“How you feeling? Need a break?”

“I’m okay, thank you. How’re we looking? I’m a little afraid of moving and messing something up.”

“You’re good, it looks great so far. I’ll let you know, though, that the shading is a lot of black, so it’ll be a little more intense. You sure you don’t need anything?”

“No Dean, I trust you.”

Those words hit Dean like a freight train, but he knows better than to press the issue with a client under the gun. Because that’s what Cas is right now, a client, and so Dean just keeps on with his usual bedside manner, maybe a little more gentle than usual, just because it’s Cas’ skin under his fingers.

Cas pretty much sits like a rock, even when Dean fills in the wings and the shadowy figure, his breathing only changes slightly, and Dean is done inside four hours, right near midnight, the soft music still playing as he cleans it up. Cas’ skin is perfect for tattoos, just pale enough that the ink looks really great, and Dean has to say, even if it wasn’t Cas, this would be one of his favorite pieces recently.

“Okay, you’re all set Cas, you can go check it out.”

Cas crosses to the mirror again, and even from where he is, Dean can hear him inhale as he looks at it. Dean isn’t sure if this is a good idea, but he goes over to Cas, and realizes, with a pang in his chest, that Cas is crying.

“Cas?”

“It’s great Dean, really great.”

“Are you-”

“I’m fine, it’s perfect.”

“Cas, I really think we should talk about this.”

Cas looks at the floor, hiding a sad smile.

“I think it’s best if we don’t.”

“Cas, please-”

“How much do I owe you?”

Dean stares at him, puzzled.

“Owe me? For what?”

“For the tattoo.”

“I don’t charge my friends.”

“Are we friends, then?”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that, and despite his internal promise to himself that he would be more honest about his emotions, he decides it’s better to deflect.

“Come here, I need to wrap you up.”

Cas stares at him with an edge of sadness visible in his eyes, but allows Dean to wrap his ribs with lotion and tape and saran wrap.

“You’ll leave this on for at least an hour, since it’s so late you can sleep with it on, but take it off in the morning. For the first two weeks, wash it twice a day with a low-fragrance soap and water, and then you can get a bottle of Aquaphor at the store, I can give you some for tonight, and you’ll put that on three times a day for two weeks. Then you can move to a non-fragrance lotion for three more weeks twice a day. Don’t soak it for at least two weeks, so no baths or swimming, showers are obviously fine. It’s gonna itch, do your best not to scratch it, pressing on it is okay and I think that helps if it’s real bad. I’ll give you an aftercare card and kit, and if you have any questions, you, well, you know where to find me.”

He finishes his spiel, and Cas nods, still looking at the floor. This isn’t what he wanted, he wanted them to fix this, but it seemed like they were so shattered into a million pieces that he had no idea how to even start gluing the pieces back together. Cas moves towards the door and as he put his hand on the handle, he turns back, blue eyes meeting his.

“Dean, I miss you so much every single day,” the words are abrupt, as if pulled from him forcibly, and Dean can’t help but close his eyes, because it’s exactly what he wants to hear but things are just so damn complicated, “And every day I almost come by here, I almost come in and tell you I forgive you and we can make things work, and then I realize that if I did that, that it would just be opening me up to doing all this again. Because what if you decide you aren’t worth my time again, or I’m not worth yours, or we don’t work? I can’t do this again.”

“Cas, I know, I know I fucked up, that I pushed you away but,” he takes a deep breath, steeling himself for this, because it was more honest than he had been in his entire life, “It’s you Cas. It’s you, it’s been you since the night of that stupid Halloween party. And I was too chickenshit to admit it, but I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want to fight with anyone else, I don’t want to make breakfast with anyone else, god knows I don’t want to fuck anyone else. I…it’s you. And I’m sorry it took me so long to just fucking get here, and I know that you moved on but I’ll feel the same either way.”

Cas is breathing like he’s run a race, chest heaving as he stares at Dean, almost incredulous. Dean’s breathing hard too, all that emotional honesty really took it out of him.

“I haven’t moved on,” Cas breathes, eyes darting everywhere, everywhere but Dean, “I can’t move on from you.”

It’s like a fifty-pound weight has been lifted of his chest, like he’s standing and breathing for the first time in six fucking months.

“Then who-”

“You never heard of a hookup?”

Dean huffs a laugh, unable to process what’s happening, and then he’s moving forward without his own permission, getting in Cas’ space, hands curling around that stupid fucking coat, breathing in the smell of that too expensive French shampoo that Cas buys at a salon on Madison Avenue and he’s leaning down, leaning towards Cas, getting ready to kiss him again after all this time, but Cas’ hands are strong, pushing Dean lightly, creating space between them.

“Can we, can we just go a little slower, just a little?”

“Yeah I, of course, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, I do, in fact this whole thing has been sheer torture because I want nothing more than to take you back there and fuck you until you can’t walk, but let’s just clean slate this. What do you say?”

Dean smiles.

“How about dinner next week then?”

__________________

They do go slower, Dean getting back into the swing of things, texting Cas, asking how his day was, Cas responding with his usual quips and humor, and Dean tries to do everything in his power to be really, truly honest with Cas.

They meet up at Caffe Buon Gusto, partially because it’s just that good and partially for the nostalgia of it all, a redo of their first date. Dean’s still nervous as hell, even though Sam, Eileen, Charlie, Pamela, and Benny are over the moon when he tells them about Cas coming into the shop. Hell, Sam practically vibrates with joy when he tells him that they have a date the next weekend, so when the date rolls around, Dean makes sure that he looks nice, still in a t shirt and jeans, but nice enough to go to a nice restaurant with the guy you’re in love with.

“You look very nice,” Cas smiles shyly at him, and Dean grins back, unable to help himself. Cas is wearing this soft looking green sweater and it really sits so unfairly nicely on those stupid broad shoulders. At this rate, Dean’s not going to be able to make it through dinner. _Slower_, he reminds himself, _slower_.

“So do you. You ready? I’ve been dreaming of that fucking chicken carbonara for months.”

Cas nods and they walk through the brightly lit streets, almost a carbon copy of the night a little over a year ago, when Dean was almost too nervous to meet Cas at all, back when he called him Castiel. A lot’s changed.

“How’s the tattoo healing, then?” Dean asks over his second glass of wine and the low chatter of the restaurant, the shadows of the candles at the tables casting dancing shadows along the walls, along Cas’ face. Things are a little different, it’s not like they’re back to normal, and Dean knows that Cas is still reserved around him, after everything, and he’s learned, in the past few days, that he shouldn’t push too hard. That he needs to be patient, even if it makes him want to run off the end of a pier leading to the Hudson.

“Good, I’d like to think I’m taking care of it. I woke up one night and was itching it in my sleep, I may have to tie my hands down.”

“Kinky,” Dean laughs as Cas throws a napkin at him, “But it’s okay, I’ve done that too, sometimes you can’t help it, but just do your best not to, it can ruin the ink and that’s the last thing you want to do, especially since it’s your first and all.”

“It really is stunning, Dean, I’m glad to have it.”

“I’m glad you have it too. You sit like a damn rock I’ll tell you that. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that sat through a full rib piece with as much coloring as yours in one sitting. I should’ve made you get up and take a break.”

“Maybe you have gentle hands,” Cas teases, “Your analogy of the hot mechanical pencil was surprisingly apt, I’ve never heard anyone describe it like that before.”

“Well I am just that smart, and expert if you will,” he laughs as Cas rolls his eyes, he had forgotten how easy it could be with him, especially when he wasn’t standing in his own way,   
“So, tell me about the LGBT+ community project you’re working on, I know it’s been a while but hey, better late than never.”

“It’s going very well, we actually found a space recently and should be up in a month or two. This has been a much longer project than I intended when I started it, but I do think it’ll do some good for the charity, plus exposure and commission for the artists, which is always important.”

Dean lets Cas talk, hand resting on his chin, taking it all in. How he was ever stupid enough to let this go was completely beyond him. Cas was so much more than an art dealer, than a guy he met at a bar, than a guy whose smile could probably cure cancer. He was an activist, a lover, a terrible artist, though he tries, a great listener, a good friend, the best damn sex Dean Winchester had ever had, and it had taken Dean far too long to notice that.

“I feel like I need to apologize,” Cas’ looks a little downcast now, eyes glued to the starched white tablecloth.

“Apologize to me? What the hell for?”

“This whole time, we’ve been acting like this was all you. Us breaking up, you know. And I’m still calling you an idiot, because you are, but…it’s not like I was blameless, you know?”

Dean simply stares at him, incredulous. 

“I don’t think I’m getting something here.”

“You were right. I’m too much of a pushover when it comes to my siblings, and I didn’t want to hear it when you called me on it. Like, I was jealous of the family that you had because it was so easy…and you know, mine’s never easy, it’s always like sort of dodging bullets. And I have friends, but nothing like what you and Sam have, nothing like what you and Charlie have. And here comes this gorgeous guy, and he’s got this amazing heart and he doesn’t think he deserves it? Deserves me? With my shitty family and a job that’s my whole life. It pissed me off, if I’m being honest. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t before.”

Cas draws in a long breath after this proclamation, and it takes Dean a second to even register that Cas was jealous of _him_.

“Thanks, Cas. I’m glad I wasn’t the only idiot here.”

“Maybe we can just take a step forward and treat each other like people and not like glass?”

Dean grins.

“Yeah. I’d like that,” he pauses for a second, steeling himself, “Can I tell you something stupid?”

“Of course.”

Dean teeters on the edge, because this is something that he doesn’t want to admit, it sounds so stupid, when he had told Sam and Charlie they had refused to speak to him for the rest of the day.

“You remember that painting? The one that you have in your hallway? The one that we looked at together when we met?”

“I do, I look at it every day, so I’d hope that I’d remember it.”

“It’s not the _only_ reason, but I was having these dreams about it. About like being caught in the middle of it, and I would see you in the dreams and you were so much better than me, higher up on the totem pole, and I, well, sorta convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough for you. And I never really explained that, because, you know, when I showed up at your door, I didn’t think that that was something to really say, especially since we hadn’t seen each other in so long and I know it doesn’t make any sense and that we’re trying to move past it and everything but I wanted to tell you how fucking stupid I am so we can maybe move past it and look at that stupid goddamn painting and laugh and…yeah.”

Dean trails off sort of lamely, not sure what to do with his hands since his heart was literally coming out of his throat in the form of word-vomit about his insecurities over a painting to Cas. Cas stares at him blankly, head cocked a little to one side, fork still suspended in midair, green pesto pasta getting colder by the second.

“You broke up with me over your dreams about a painting?”

“No that, like I said, it wasn’t everything, it just kinda helped my insecurities that I didn’t deserve you along. That you’re above me and leaving wouldn’t hurt you so you could do it anytime. And I started to get convinced that someone in your circle would find out about me, who I was, my past or whatever and would tell you so I just figured it was better that is. I know it’s dumb, but I wanted you to know.”

“You have the strangest mind, Dean Winchester,” Cas shakes his head, putting his fork down, “I have never, ever been broken up with because of a painting.”

“You should be happy about this, that thing really stayed with me.”

Cas rolls his eyes and smiles, still shaking his head.

“You said you weren’t into abstract art, but letting it dictate your relationships? Rothko could never.”

“Okay okay, laugh all you want,” but Dean stops as Cas really starts to laugh, that laugh this hiccups and jolts and makes him snort a little bit. The whole absurdity of the thing makes Dean laugh too, because now that he’s back with Cas, now that he’s worked through some of the layers of his own bullshit, realizing that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t _Apocalipsitora_ that made him push Cas away, but his own fear, the fear of becoming like his father, of being considered subpar, of being inadequate, he feels lighter, like he doesn’t have to worry about being good enough, he can just be him, and that’s what’s good enough.

They laugh until tears are running down their faces, ignoring the looks of the people around them, and Cas puts his hand across the table, reaching out to Dean, across the wide void that Dean had managed to create between them, and Dean bridges the gap, intertwining their fingers, letting the heat of Cas’ hand run through him and trying to catch his breath.

“You are ridiculous, Dean,” Cas’ eyes are bright and still watery, and they don’t break apart, holding contact with their fingers for the rest of dinner, Dean trying to maneuver his fork with his left hand instead of his right, but he’s not, under any circumstances, going to let Cas go.

“Can I ask you something now?”

“Mmm?”

“Tell me more about that guy, the one you mentioned. In Chicago.”

Dean’s heart drops, because he usually refused to talk about Lee, about whatever it is that they were. But Cas was different, Cas knew about Chicago now, about what Dean had done, and he had still come back to him, when Lisa has sprinted as fast as she could to San Diego. He could trust Cas, he had to trust Cas.

“He was…I guess he was the first person I ever fell in love with.”

It’s hard for Dean, especially at first, to talk about Chicago with anyone. He had told Sam first, well, besides Lee of course, right after John had died, he had told him about nearly starving, about doing what he needed to just to survive. Sam, the incredible soul that he was, had never judged Dean for it, even though Dean judged everything about it for himself. He had hated that part of himself for so damn long, for going to bed with people for money, for selling a part of himself that he never thought would be necessary, but when John had thrown him out he had been left with few options, barely old enough to get a job without parent’s permission.

When Bobby had found him, half dead and freezing at the corner by the shop, he had taken him in without a words, introducing him to a group of boys that were a lot like him: outcasts who had made their mistakes and Bobby would put them all on the right path. Lee was the newest addition, Ash and Bobby had been together for years, since Ash was eighteen, Bobby had been like his father, and Dean had been accepted without question, bonding with Lee almost immediately over their love of bad movies and good music.

Lee had sucked him in with good looks and killer charm, and, without fear or shame souring him, fear that John was going to find him, Dean fell a little too hard a little too quickly, letting the blue of Lee’s eyes wrap him up, not wanting to worry about anything else.

Until John had died, and Dean had felt the shame come back with a vengeance that he had never known. He couldn’t go back, he couldn’t let himself have that, he didn’t deserve that happiness, not when his father had died, drunk and alone, without Dean there.

In hindsight, Dean knew with certainty that his father was a bastard, who hated him just for being, especially just for being who he was, and it was Dean’s greatest regret, to call Bobby and leave Lee to pick up the pieces of their life together, to start over and ignore calls that came day after day, week after week, month after month.

Cas hears all of this without judgement, the candle between them still flickering, the restaurant near closing. Dean deserves judgement for this, and he knows that, but Cas’s face doesn’t show him that, it shows him simple interest, keen listening. Cas always knew how to surprise him.

“And you haven’t seen him?”

“No, not since a couple of years ago, like I told you about. Bobby told me that he’s married now, which I’m glad for. I thought about going back to see him, but whenever I swing through I just see the guys, I think Bobby makes sure he’s not there now. We almost got into a fist fight the last time, so I think it’s better for us both.”

“Hm.”

“You can tell me I’m an asshole for ghosting him Cas, I know I am.”

“You are, but that’s not what I was going to tell you.”

“What were you going to say, then?”

“That I’m sorry that you hated yourself so much that you didn’t think you deserved him. That you didn’t think you deserved me, or Lisa. You do.”

Dean is dumbfounded, his mouth is moving but no words come out.

“I’m eternally grateful you ran to my apartment that day, that you explained why you’d been such an ass. I’m glad you’re telling me this now, I hope it helps you heal.”

“I shouldn’t have put you through that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have, but as long as you grow, learn from that, I’ll be more than happy to stick out all your other fuckups for many years to come. I hope you stick through mine.”

“When have you-”

“Don’t put me on a pedestal, that’s not what I want. You and I are equals, that’s why I-” Cas breaks off, stopping himself, “That’s why we work.”

Dean cocks his head to the side, a smile spreading across his face like warm molasses.

“How do you mean?”

“I’m not saying everything was, or will be, easy. But you and I, despite my familial issues with you and your issues with my family, it’s easy to be with you. I’ve never found it easier.”

“I’m sorry it took me this long to figure it out.”

“Don’t be, just be glad that I decided New York was more important to me than a job offer.”

“Dream job offer is how you put it to me.”

Cas laughs.

“It was, and I want you to know that I didn’t stay for you, but part of me, the romantic in me, I guess, hoped you’d do exactly what you did, and run across the city to me and beg to take me back. Pity it wasn’t raining.”

“Next time I’ll be sure to do it when it’s raining.”

“Let’s hope there’s not a next time.”

They don’t go to a show after dinner, but end up walking through Central Park, towards the Angel of the Waters fountain, passing some families, some couples, some runners, some single people. Once again, the beating heart of the city was in Central Park. Dean slips his fingers through Cas’ and they walk peacefully, simply enjoying each other, not needing to say anything. When they get to the fountain, Dean looks over at Cas and he smiles.

“This is nice.”

“It is.”

Dean pauses, looking at Cas’ profile as he stares up at the fountain.

“Cas, can we skip the awkward buildup?”

“Regarding what?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Cas’ eyes meet his, and Dean’s a little afraid that he may have pushed too far, that Cas may put up another wall that Dean had been working to prove he was trustworthy enough to take down, but Cas just leans forward and Dean swears his heart is going to burst, because he’s pretty much wanted to kiss every day for the last six months.

The kiss is brief, Cas’s lips are chapped and his nose is cold from the chilly November air around them, and as Dean pulls him in, he doesn’t kiss him again, he just holds him, two warm bodies contrasting the cold city around them, the concrete jungle, and Dean feels like he can breathe, like he should be gasping in lungfuls of air, because the feel of Cas holding him back is almost more than he can take.

“Thanks for this, Cas. For another chance.”

Cas hums, tightening his grip on Dean’s back.

“Thank you for earning it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thanks for sticking through the angst! :) I really sorta love this chapter and I'm really excited to hear what y'all think. Seriously, every single comment and interaction on this fic makes my entire day, ilu all sm <3


	16. Bedrooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Be loving to him. Because he’s only a little boat looking for a harbor.” ― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Dean’s still learning how to not overanalyze everything that goes on between him and Cas. He lets Cas pay for dates, tries to listen more than he talks, and tries to get a little more adjusted and a little less clingy. They go on more dates, Dean trying his best to not push too hard, but sometimes, usually when they’re about to part ways for the night, he finds himself with that hunger that he only has when he’s around Cas, and it takes more willpower than he thought he had to not take Castiel back to his apartment and fuck him boneless.

Cas breaks the news to his family about them being back together over thanksgiving, and comes over to Dean’s apartment that night, looking royally pissed off and like he was ready to throw a punch or two. It was just Sam, Dean, Charlie, and Eileen at the apartment, Pamela having gone to meet her latest boyfriend’s friends, Benny and Andrea taking a sleepy Celeste home to Queens. They had been watching _A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving_ when Cas had banged on the door.

“You okay?” Dean asks as Cas pretty much falls over the threshold, hair all over the place.

“It seems I overestimated my siblings,” he spits, tossing his coat in the coat closet, not seeming to care that it fell on a heap on the floor.

“What d’you mean?” Dean picks up the coat and places it on a hanger as Cas paces the floor.

“Are you okay, Cas? What happened?” Charlie jumps up and makes him stand still, looking at her.

“You were right about them, Dean. They were…unhappy when I mentioned I was seeing you again.”

“Well come on, you can’t really blame them, Cas,” Dean tries placating him, “I did majorly fuck up. And if that happened to Sam I wouldn’t be shy about telling him that it was fucking stupid to get back together with his ex.”

“He’s done that before, Cas,” Sam pipes up from the corner, where he and Eileen are curled up on the couch.

Cas takes a shaky breath.

“Well, they did feel the need to bring up your social class, which is so utterly ridiculous. And I told them as much.”

“They’re right to be protective of you. They don’t know me, not really, they don’t know I’m serious about you, they probably just think I want to fuck you up again. But we have time, even if they don’t like me they can at least get used to me,” he squeezes Cas’ hand, “Listen, don’t worry about it, just crash here, we’ve got tons of food and beer and wine and bad movies. Let’s just hang out. Chill, not worry about anything. Okay?”

Cas closes his eyes, holding his and Charlie’s hands. He takes a deep breath.

“Thank you, I appreciate it.”

The evening turns out to be even better with Cas there. He and Dean get very drunk, watching a rotation of like four football games, Cas lazily asking Dean to explain, and Dean getting way too into it, occasionally yelling at the TV when there was a bad call.

“Who knew you were this into sports?”

“Oh I did,” Sam says from the corner, where he and Eileen had been dozing before Dean’s latest outburst, “you should see him during the National Championship game, it drives me nuts.”

At some point in the third quarter, Cas’ phone starts to ring, and Dean can see Balthazar’s picture lighting up the screen. He does his best to push the anger that flares in his gut down, but he does still sorta hate them, even if he pretended not to in front of Cas. 

Cas glares down at the screen and then, before any of them can make a move to stop him, he slides his thumb to accept the call.

“What?” the aggression in his voice is new, certainly new to Dean, and he has to remind himself that they’re supposed to be going slower now, but fuck is it hot when Cas gets keyed up.

He can hear Balthazar through the phone, clearly attempting to tell Cas off for leaving them in the middle of thanksgiving, but Cas, who Dean had only seen passive with his siblings, was suddenly turning red in the face, standing up abruptly, not seeming to care that they were all listening to every word he was saying.

“You can tell Anna to fuck off. She has a lot of nerve to tell me that, when she exclusively dates men who are one medical emergency from the fucking morgue.”

“Got em,” Charlie whispers, and Eileen giggles, all eyes still glued to Cas.

“And no, you have no right to speak to me about it either, considering the longest relationship you’ve ever had was five minutes, probably shorter with how long you last.”

Even Sam’s jaw is on the floor. Watching Cas pace, Dean realizes he’s never been more turned on than he is right now. Cas is running his free hand through his hair and pacing, and he looks like steam is about to come out of his ears.

“Well the only ones that I want to speak to left as well so we have nothing more to say to each other,” Cas pauses, “Gadreel and Samandriel are the least of my problems…Gabriel is in there too, if you want to play bitch games you’ll win bitch prizes. I don’t want to hear it Balthazar. And really, tell Anna to fuck off.”

Cas throws his phone into the couch and is met by thunderous applause from all of them.

“That was absolutely incredible Cas,” Sam says, pretty much bouncing out of his seat, Eileen nodding emphatically next to him. Cas collapses back down next to Dean.

“That felt…incredibly good.”

“That was some of the best family roasting I’ve ever heard, thank you for letting us experience that absolute destruction.”

“They deserved worse, but I’ve always been the passive one so.”

He sighs and leans back into the couch, and they all take their cue and go back to the TV and their conversations. Dean runs his hand gently along Cas’ arm, and Cas leans into the touch, sinking into Dean’s shoulder and remaining there for the rest of the night.

Sam and Eileen depart not too long after the end of the game, and Sam warns Dean not to be “too loud”.

“Right back at ya,” Dean slurs, earning him a slap on the back of the head from Sam.

Charlie is already passed out in an armchair, not paying them any attention, and Dean tries to reign in his excitement over college football, explaining the rules to Cas, what calls mean what, which teams he should be rooting for. Cas listens to him intently, if a little glazed over, and when the game ends, he tries to stand too fast, almost losing his balance so Dean has to steady him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Whoa dude, where’s the fire?”

“I should get home,” Cas says, a slight slur to his voice.

“Yeah that’s a definite no Cas. You can stay the night here, I don’t want you out there drunk.”

“I can take care of myself, Dean Winchester,” Cas snaps, but he’s already moving to Dean’s room, and Dean sways hesitantly, maybe he should just stay out here with Charlie, he’s not sure he and Cas are ready for…that.

“Are you coming?” Cas’ low voice comes from his bedroom, and Dean throws a blanket over Charlie, turning out the lights before heading to his room, which feels like a dragon’s lair at this point, to dangerous to enter. But that treasure was in there, and since when had Dean ever had any kind of self-preservation instincts?

Cas is already out of his shirt when Dean pushes the door open, and he’s wiggling out of his jeans right in front of Dean’s eyes, and Dean suddenly wishes he had had fifteen more beers so he wouldn’t have to remember this in the morning, because it would keep him up at night.

“You still have that toothbrush I kept here?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, under the sink. Green one.”

Cas hums and heads to the bathroom, and Dean huffs out his breath as soon as he hears the door click, trying to release some of the tension he’s holding in his shoulders. This was fine, he’s being stupid, it’s not like they haven’t shared a bed before, but Dean is suddenly so terrified by the prospect of _fucking things up again_ that he feels himself losing his grip.

_Pull it together_ he tells himself, and he sucks a deep breath in, and makes a supreme effort to go about his nightly routine normally. He pulls of his shirt and tosses it into his hamper and opts to go to bed in his boxers, stepping out of his sweatpants and tossing them into the hamper as well. When he turns around he sees Cas leaning against the doorframe, backlit but still so intensely beautiful that it makes Dean’s throat constrict.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he teases, biting his bottom lip in the way that makes Dean see stars.

“Ha ha,” Dean says, slipping by Cas to brush his teeth as well.

When he comes back, his bedside lamp is on, and Cas is waiting for him, propped up on one elbow.

“Welcome back.”

“Thanks so much,” Dean slides into bed next to him, sighing happily at the feeling of warm skin next to his, “Glad I could make your night a little better.”

“You did, and you’re right, they’re just trying to protect me. You might be a lost cause to them, but we can cross that bridge later.”

“Well, guess they just have to get used to me,” Dean stretches, hands meeting the cool wood of his headboard, “As you know, I’m a joy to be around.”

Cas rolls his eyes and cards his fingers idly through Dean’s hair.

“You are a child.”

“That’s true,” he takes a breath, “I’m really glad you’re here, too.”

“I’m happy to be here. I missed sharing a bed with you.”

“You have no idea how much I missed it. It’s too cold.”

Cas’ hands trace the lines of Dean’s face, down his forehead, his nose, catching slightly on the metal of his piercings, and Dean closes his eyes, savoring the sensation of being touched by Cas.

“Mhm. I can warm you up.”

Dean looks at Cas, and he can tell what he wants, which, don’t get him wrong, Dean also wants with all of his, uh, heart, but there was a surplus of people in the house tonight, and Dean didn’t trust either of them to be quiet, especially when they were both drunk.

“Can I take a rain check?”

Cas rolls his eyes, inching closer to Dean.

“You and your fucking rain checks.”

“You really want to wake everyone on my block up? At least your place is soundproof.”

“Not true, remember the complaint we got that one time from my next-door neighbor?”

Dean laughs.

“My point still stands.”

“Then let’s go to mine,” Cas whispers into Dean’s neck, hands wandering down his chest, drawing tiny patterns, leaving Dean wanting more, “I want you.”

“I want you too, just not when there’s extra people in the house and we’re both drunk as fuck.”

“I don’t care,” Cas is dragging his hands down Dean’s stomach and if they don’t stop soon, Dean won’t.

“I thought you wanted to go slow. Not rush into things,” Dean is fully panting now, and Cas rolls over, straddling his hips.

“What if I changed my mind?” his lips are on the pulse thrumming, thundering in Dean’s neck.

“Cas I…I’m out of excuses.”

“Good.”

Dean leans up to kiss him and Cas hunches over, pulling on Dean’s hair. Dean wastes no time, sliding Cas’ boxers down, laughing quietly as Cas violently kicks them across the room, and then he’s moving down Cas’ body, like he did that first night, taking in all the tiny details it would have been a crime to forget. Cas positively whimpers when his mouth meets the seam of his thigh and his cock.

“_Fuck me, Dean_,” Cas moans, head twisting into the pillows to try and muffle the sound.

“Is that a request?” Dean asks, coming up for air for a second to look at Cas’ face, which is twisted and contorted and painfully beautiful.

“At this point, it’s an order,” Cas’ hands are already scrabbling at the drawer in the bedside table, where he knows the condoms are, and Dean leaves a row of stinging bites up Cas’ stomach, shushing him as he groans loudly into the quiet room.

Dean’s usually steady hands are shaking as he rips open the wrapper of one of the condoms, which are lubricated because he’s not an animal, and he slides it on. The anticipation is almost too much, they’re both breathing hard already, and Dean knows this will last a couple of minutes tops. Six months is too goddamn long.

Dean’s hunch is right, they aren’t quiet, and they don’t last long. It takes no time at all for Dean to realize that they’re both being loud enough to wake up half of the borough, and that he’s already about ten seconds from bringing new meaning to the term “premature ejaculation.”

“Cas I’m-” he stumbles over his words, broken.

“Come on,” Cas grits around him, blunt nails dragging down Dean’s back, arching his back so their chests are pressed flush, and it’s one of those rare moments that they basically come at the same time, and Dean bites down on his lip hard enough to taste blood.

They come down from their high, limbs tangled together, carefully avoiding the wet spot on Dean’s duvet, which is going to be so fucking annoying to take to the laundromat. Dean presses their foreheads together, mostly sober now, and he closes his eyes, breathing in the smell of Cas’ sweat and a little bit of cigarette smoke, probably from one of his siblings.

“I missed you.”

Cas huffs a breath onto his shoulder, tracing the indents his teeth had left there with his finger.

“I missed you too. Sorry we woke up the block.”

Dean kisses him and draws him in closer. Any space between them was too much.

“I’m not.”

They fall asleep facing each other, Cas curled into Dean, his hands wrapped around Dean’s forearms, pulling him as close as he could. And as he drifts off, Dean traces the still-healing ink on Cas’ side, the fallen angel with its bloody wings, and he revels in the feeling of rightness that permeates the air when he’s with Cas.

_________________

“You two are absolute animals,” Charlie grunts at them the next morning, head in her hands as she makes coffee.

“What-”

“Shut the fuck up, you know what. I didn’t need to hear that, Dean.”

“You’re fine, how many times have I heard it from you? Stop being a baby. Plus it’s not like it…anyway.”

“Oh I know how long it lasted. Trust me. I think there’s a couple of people in Russia that didn’t hear you if you want to go for round two.”

“Okay, yeah whatever. Where’s Sam?”

“He and Eileen went for a run like forty-five minutes ago. They said they’d bring back breakfast.”

“So those fucking gross smoothies they drink? Nah. It’s pie time.”

“You read my mind.”

Dean cuts himself and Charlie two really massive slices of apple pie for breakfast. He even made one for Charlie with gluten free crust, which took around ten thousand years longer than normal but, you know, he’d do anything for her.

“You got any cheddar?”

“Charlie, even if I did I wouldn’t give it to you.”

“It’s a northeastern tradition!”

“Apple pie and cheese is disgusting!”

“You’ve never even tried it, you just-”

“I don’t need to try it, it’s the principle of the thing,” Cas appears at the sound of their bickering, “Cas! Tell Charlie that apple pie and cheddar cheese is an abomination that should be banned.”

“You know I’m from New York state?”

“Cas…no…”

“I grew up on it, it’s very good.”

Charlie smirks at Dean.

“This is why Cas is my favorite.”

“Why? Do you have any cheese?”

Dean stares at him, incredulous.

“No. And I wouldn’t give my hard-earned cheese to you two so you could put it on apple pie anyway.”

“Quit whining and cut me a piece,” Cas smiles at Charlie, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Charlie smiles back through a mouthful of pie, “Good night?”

“Charlie-” Dean begins, but Cas just chuckles as he takes the plate from his hands. They stand around the tiny kitchen, which is far too cramped to have three people in it, but it feels nice, domestic in a way. Charlie and Cas pick up right where they left off, she had said more than once that she missed Cas more than he did. Dean listens to them chatter about theatre and art, and finishes his pie before either of them, right as Sam and Eileen come back from their run, with bagels and, of course, the green smoothies they both love so much.

“Charlie tried to convince me to put cheddar cheese on pie again,” Dean calls to Sam immediately, glad to have the backup.

“You’re such a tattle tale,” Charlie rolls her eyes, walking to help Eileen with the bags of bagels from the shop down the block.

“It’s just weird. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

Sam turns a little red when he sees Cas, and Dean knows he’s going to get a lecture about “boundaries” and “being too loud” when Cas, Charlie, and Eileen leave. _But_, he thinks idly, surreptitiously touching a spot on his side that Cas had left a mark on, _it was still worth it_.

Cas hangs out with them for a while, sitting on the floor between Dean’s legs, back resting on the couch as they channel surf, Sam and Dean bickering about whether Hulu or Netflix has a better selection of holiday movies to choose from. Charlie passes out in her chair, Dean’s half convinced she’s more bear than human with the way she sleeps, and Eileen pulls out a book a few minutes into the new Netflix Christmas movie they decide on. Dean finds himself running his fingers through Cas’ hair, his head resting on Dean’s knee.

The bubble is broken when Cas sighs, and goes to stand. Dean, outraged, pauses the movie and stares at him, indignant.

“Where are you going?”

“Going to meet my siblings. We have a tradition after thanksgiving to go shopping for Christmas together, and as angry as I am at them, I don’t want to miss it. So I have to go.”

“You’re going to hang out with them? After you literally told three of them to fuck off last night?”

Cas grins.

“I am, Gadreel has assured me that they’ll be on their best behavior.”

He shows Dean his phone, where stoic Gadreel made a pretty impassioned plea, saying he and Samandriel wouldn’t survive the day without him.

“Three on three, makes sense.”

“And I’m not angry with Gadreel and Samandriel the way I’m angry at the others. So move.”

Dean whines and rolls his eyes, throwing his head back into the couch cushions.

“Ugh.”

Cas’ mouth lifts in one of those half smiles Dean loves so much. He kisses the top of Dean’s head as he retrieves his shoes from the corner. Dean throws a bagel at Charlie to wake her up, and she bounds to Cas to give him a hug.

“Thanks for doing thanksgiving with us,” Sam smiles as he also envelops Cas in one of those huge bear hugs he gives, Eileen stands up on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you very much for having me. I hope it’s one of many.”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll walk you out,” Dean sways awkwardly and Charlie scoffs.

“It was great having you,” Dean says as they stand in the freezing air outside, the door safely between them and the prying, gossipy eyes of Sam and Charlie.

“I hope you mean that in more ways than one,” Cas winks, and Dean smiles, looking at the ground.

“I do, all possible meanings intended,” Dean reaches for Cas, bridging the too-many inches of space between them, “Come here, I need it.”

Cas obliges, kissing him with a voracity that does not fit the idea of a goodbye. Dean responds, sliding his hands up under Cas’ t shirt, his cold hands making Cas shiver.

“Sorry,” he whispers against Cas’ mouth.

“Don’t be, just don’t stop.”

This is far from a goodbye kiss, it’s rapidly turning into something that will get them a public indecency ticket if they aren’t careful. Not that Dean cares, he just wants more of whatever he’s feeling right now.

“Cas,” he whispers, trying to slow down the rapidly increasing speed of their breath, the urgency of their kisses, the rattling of his own heart.

“Dean,” it’s more of a moan than a response, and Dean shuts his brain off again, refusing to think of the people walking by, the people inside his warm apartment, he only thinks about Cas’ lips and his hands and his warm skin, the skin on his ribs still raised with his new tattoo.

Cas is the one to break the kiss, lips swollen and pink and his cheeks red.

“I’ll see you later.”

“Please. Pretty pretty please.”

Cas hums and gives him the lightest kiss, his lips ghosting on Dean’s.

“Goodbye Dean.”

“Text me when you get home.”

Cas smirks and nods, heading up their little stairs and onto the street, walking in the direction of the nearest station. Dean watches until he’s out of sight, not even registering the fact that his toes were going numb, the warmth in his chest too hot to notice anything else.

“Wowee, that was a hell of a goodbye,” Charlie teases as Dean opens the door, “Let me guess, reading poetry to each other.”

“The dictionary, actually.”

“Oh yeah, you definitely look like a person that just read the dictionary,” Charlie looks him up and down, “We paused the movie for you.”

“Thanks, I was actually enjoying it.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon in front of the TV, because that’s what thanksgiving is for, and if Dean smiles a little too much when Cas texts him, telling him that his siblings had been very disapproving of the state he was in when they met at Barney’s, that was nobody’s business but his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really can't believe that next week is the last chapter? Ok ok I won't get too emo this week but next week all bets are off pal. I really hope you guys enjoy, and yeah, the cheddar cheese thing is something I've been fighting with my Northeastern friends and family about for years.  
As usual I would LOVE to talk about it, and your comments give me life! Ilu all <3


	17. Gallery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Men do not naturally not love – they learn not to.” – Larry Kramer, The Normal Heart

The gallery opening begins to loom, and Dean sees far less of Cas than he would like, between being completely booked at the shop (they did have to shut down walk ins, which Dean was both immensely proud of and a little bit sad, like the end of an era) and Cas spending every spare second at the gallery space in Harlem. Cas texts him almost incessantly, asking for his opinion on what piece where, what level of lighting, the food, everything. Dean takes becoming a little bit of a gallery designer in stride, answering the questions Cas puts to him as best he can, reminding Cas that he does have an office full of professionals to help him with this.

“I know,” Cas sighs over dinner the night before the opening, takeout Dean brought to Cas’ apartment in the dead of night after he had closed the shop. It was raining, tapping lightly at the windows of Cas’ place, making the lamps a little brighter, the city around them a shimmer of blurry white and red and yellow.

“I’m not saying you can’t ask me, I just feel like I won’t have the best answers, I don’t have a degree from Harvard in interior art design or whatever.”

Cas sighs, picking at his container of fried rice.

“You look drained, Cas. Is everything okay? Or are you just tried from working so much?”

“Mostly just tired. I just really want this to be good, you know, because it’s not about me or my career, I want it to do well for the charity and the artists.”

“You’ll be great, it’ll be great, you know. It’s for such a great cause, and you’ve worked so hard. It’s gonna be fine.”

Cas sighs again, nodding, trying to buy into Dean’s words.

“You aren’t alone in this, Cas. You know any of us would do anything to help, you just have to ask.”

Cas smiles softly, taking his hand.

“I know, and I’m grateful for all of you. This has just been very stressful and I’m ready for it to be over so I can stop worrying about whether anyone will show up.”

Cas picks up his phone, running his hand through his hair distractedly as he reads an email; lips moving silently, forming the words, trying to make his brain keep working, even though it clearly needed a break.

“I know what you need,” Dean picks up the remote to Cas’ TV and puts on Cas’ favorite TV show, a guilty pleasure that he would only admit to when he was really, truly drunk, “XOXO.”

“Oh god yes, Dean. Thank you,” Cas grins as Dean tosses him the remote, letting him pick the episode they start with. _Gossip Girl_ wasn’t that bad, Dean was always down for a trash TV show, and it was always a surefire way to make Cas smile, so he never minds when they watch it, especially when Cas clearly needed it.

They stay up too late watching random episodes that Cas picks, occasionally pausing so he can write something down, send an email, or otherwise panic about some tiny detail of the gallery that Dean has to talk him down from. He really believed that it would be a success, Charlie had been telling every single person in her “Be Gay, Do Crimes” Facebook group that it was happening, they had all banded together to do some serious poster designing, and had put it up in the shop, at Sam’s office, at all their favorite bars. They were going to make it a success if it killed them, and Cas was so fucking talented and good at these things that Dean wasn’t sure he needed their help, though he was always glad to give it.

Cas falls asleep, head pillowed by Dean’s stomach, and Dean watches him as the episode they were on ends, taking in how relaxed he looks, his long lashes casting a tiny shadow onto his cheekbones, his forehead smooth and not wrinkled in worry, his lips slightly parted. He appreciates every version of Cas, from the Cas who’s head is thrown back and pupils are dilated when Dean’s fucking him, to the grumpy morning Cas who won’t speak to him until he’s had his coffee, but this Cas, sleepy, relaxed Cas is one of his favorites.

Dean himself falls asleep on the couch, pinned there by Cas, and he wakes up a couple of hours when Cas stirs, sitting up and stretching.

“What time is it?”

Dean checks his watch, his wrist sort of numb from Cas laying on it for so long.

“About three, you heading to the bedroom?”

“Yes, will you stay?”

“Always.”

Dean and Cas brush their teeth side by side in Cas’ too huge bathroom, Dean even has his own toothbrush there now, and the drawer or two of clothes that Cas had confessed he had never cleaned out and returned to him when they split up.

“This two sinks thing is weird,” Dean says, toothbrush still sticking out of his mouth as he washes his face.

“His and his,” Cas teases, stripping off his shirt with agonizing casualness, tossing it into his laundry basket in the corner and turning towards Dean. He’s so unfairly handsome, with his tan skin and his broad shoulders and his beautiful hands. It’s three in the morning, but Dean was always, always hungry for Cas.

“I’ll call this bathroom partially mine when we fuck in that tub, that will christen this bathroom to me.”

Cas laughs, putting moisturizer on his face.

“Twist my arm. You know, I’ve never actually used the tub. Not really a bath kinda guy.”

“You will be when I finish with you,” Dean raises his eyebrows suggestively, making Cas roll his eyes.

“Okay Romeo, let’s go to bed before you get too worked up.”

Cas is itching to be the big spoon as soon as they hit the pillows, and Dean lets him, even though Dean’s taller and he’s always been of the opinion that the taller person should be the big spoon. But it’s nice, Cas curled around him, Dean being able to hold his hands and arch so that his back is pressed flush with Cas’ chest, and he can feel Cas’ nose in his hair.

“I’m really nervous about tomorrow.”

“I know you are, sweetheart, but I think it’s going to be great, and who gives a fuck what _The New York Times _says, anyway?”

“I do.”

“I know, but I know people are going to love it, Cas. How could they not? You did it.”

Cas huffs a laugh into Dean’s hair.

“I’m not as important to everyone else.”

“Yeah you are. World would suck without you.”

Cas holds Dean a little tighter and they’re quiet for a while, listening to the rain hit the windows and a distant siren on the street below.

“Can I tell you something?” Cas asks, voice a little small.

“Of course, yeah.”

“I’m nervous my siblings won’t like it.”

Dean’s quiet for a minute, trying to think of the best way to allay Cas’ fears.

“Listen, I know we’re not crazy about each other, but we have one thing in common: we’re crazy about you. And I’d look at ten thousand galleries of weird art if it meant something to you. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about it. They’ll be proud of you, just like I am.”

Dean feels him relax, and he gives himself an invisible pat on the back for that one.

“You’re right, you are. Everything about this has just kicked my anxiety to the next level. Plus, Anna definitely has not forgotten that I told her to fuck off.”

“She deserved it.”

Cas traces the lines of Dean’s face, fingers catching slightly on the metal of his lip ring.

“I’m not arguing with that. I wish I didn’t want to impress them.”

“I get it, it’s reasonable, it’s a big deal, but I’m with you every step of the way.”

The moment that hangs in the air is one that Dean’s gotten almost used to. Some unsaid words between them, something that Dean is still too afraid to say, but certainly wouldn’t mind if Cas said. It happened all the time now, and each time, each time those words hang in the air, he gets a little bit closer to saying them. But not tonight. Not tonight.

Dean twists around to kiss him, and Cas responds. It’s gentle, slow, tender, a perfect goodnight kiss.

Not long after, Cas’ breathing turns slow and deep and steady, and Dean takes a moment before he falls asleep to watch the window, where the rain is streaking down the glass, to feel the heat of Cas pressed up against him, to hear the sound of his breath, to smell Cas’ expensive shampoo and laundry detergent on his sheets, to taste Cas on his tongue, to use every one of his senses to appreciate the moment that he’s in. He may be a little tiny dot of a person in this great big world, a tiny dot that struggles to feel worthy, worthwhile, but he, at least, found another tiny dot of a person that he can struggle with. He’s grateful for that.

___________________

Cas is an absolute nervous wreck the next morning. He throws on his tie, tries to tie it backwards, searching around for his portfolio book, loses his keys six separate times, and almost breaks down in tears when he can’t find his coffee mug. Dean approaches him from behind, turns him around gently, wipes the tears starting in the corners of his eyes away.

“Cas. Breathe.”

“I can’t, I have to get to the gallery, I know Hannah’s already there and I need to-”

Dean refuses to let Cas move, hands solidly on his shoulders, holding him in place.

“Harlem will still be there in ten minutes. Look at me.”

Cas does. He meets Dean’s eyes and Dean won’t let them go.

“Okay. Great. Now breathe in.”

“Dean I don’t have time for-”

Dean covers Cas’ mouth with his hand, and Cas’ indignant blue eyes stare at him.

“I’m not letting go until you do this breathing exercise with me. This is the exercise that got Sam through his bar exam. Trust me.”

Cas rolls his eyes and then takes a deep breath in.

“And breathe out,” Dean removes his hand from Cas’ mouth, and Cas huffs out a breath, “And in…and out…”

They continue the process as Dean fixes Cas’ tie, makes him a to-go cup of coffee, picks up his fallen keys, and gets his coat from the coat closet. Cas looks decidedly less frantic as Dean hands him the coffee and helps him into his coat, breathing more regular and eyes less terrified than before.

“Okay, go knock ‘em dead. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay,” Cas breathes, one hand fisting in Dean’s t shirt, “Remember, doors are at 6:30. Please don’t be late or I might die.”

Dean chuckles, giving Cas a brief kiss.

“I’ll be there at 6:15.”

Cas smiles, and heads down his hallway, throwing Dean one last look before he makes the turn to the elevator. Dean gives him a wave, knowing that he had done all he could to make this day a little bit easier on him.

The shop is, of course, busy, as it always seems to be nowadays.

“How’s he doing?” Pamela asks, eyes wide with worry as Dean sets down his bag and shrugs off his jacket. She’s such a mom, he loves her.

“A wreck, as we predicted, but I made him do that breathing thing you showed Sam and it seemed to help.”

The day flies, Dean keeps an eye on his phone between appointments, but doesn’t hear a peep from Cas, which doesn’t necessarily worry him per se, just makes him that much more anxious to get the fuck out of here and get to that gallery opening.

They close the shop at five, not taking walk ins meant they could close when they wanted, or, at least, when they day’s appointments were finished, and Dean changes into the actual button down shirt that he brought for the opening. Benny and Pamela force him into a tie as well, but they can’t stop him from rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt, because he’s not going to a goddamn _funeral_.

They make their way to the train, all of them in a little group, chattering about the day’s clients, tattoos, consultations, the fact that Benny’s client had almost passed out in the chair and Benny nearly threw out his back trying to catch the guy before he fell.

“It was just some script work on his arm! The guy was huge!” Benny complains as they get on the A headed towards Harlem. Dean’s emotions key more keyed up with every stop, he sort of feels like he’s going to throw up. Or have a heart attack. He’s not sure which one is going to win out at the moment.

“Hey brother, don’t need you losing it too,” Benny puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and Dean realizes that he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, swaying almost violently as the train snakes through the underbelly of Manhattan.

“Yeah, sorry. I don’t know why I’m so nervous, it’s not like I’m opening an art gallery.”

“You care about Cas, honey, that’s why you’re nervous,” Pamela smiles at him from the other side of the subway car, and Dean is struck by just how fucking lucky he is to have them all in his life at the moment.

“It’s okay Dean, I told you, I swear there’s going to be tons of people there. My DND group and my book club all RSVP’d, so that’s at least like…ten people.”

Dean laughs, because Charlie’s dumb jokes always seem to work on him, no matter how worked up he is.

Andrea meets them at the station in Harlem, and they walk together towards the gallery, Dean leading the pack, desperate to see the finished product that Cas had been working so hard on.

“Holy shit,” Charlie gasps when they round the corner. There are people lined up around the block, waiting for the gallery to open. It looks stunning from the outside, with every pride flag hung in front, soft lighting visible from the outside. Warm, inviting, safe. Dean stares in disbelief at the crowd outside.

“Should we…go to the front?” Pamela asks, staring at the line.

“I guess? Cas knows we’re coming.”

Dean leads the way to the door, passing the line of people twisting around the block. Look, it’s not like he’s surprised that people want to see the gallery, god knows he does, but let’s be honest, none of them expected this kind of turnout. They end up grouped near the door, eyeing the entrance, Dean searching the inside for a glimpse of that dark hair.

“Dean. You are aware you’re holding something that can get in touch with him right?”

“Oh. Shit. Yeah.”

“Dean!”

Beautiful, bright, blue eyes staring at him, calling his name. Cas doesn’t look terrified anymore, he looks completely elated, and he motions them over to him, pulling Dean into a tight hug the second he’s reachable.

“I can’t thank you, all of you, enough. I know that so much of this crowd is down to you and I-”

“You’re family, Cas,” Pamela says simply, and they all chorus her, “Nothing we did can do it justice though, the place looks absolutely stunning.”

“Looks amazing Cas,” Benny claps him on the shoulder, as Andrea kisses him on the cheek and Charlie practically vibrates with joy.

They’re right. There are strings of lights hung from the ceiling, giving the whole place the feel of one of those huge tents people have weddings in in the country. The art on the walls is the thing that shines. It’s the perfect eclectic mix, some things sad, some things happy, bright colors and completely black, canvases the size of a wall and the size of a stamp, they splatter the walls, organized chaos, and Dean feels drawn to them, a direct contrast to that gallery opening all those months ago, when he ran into a dark haired art dealer and gallery curator that changed his life.

“Well, you’re the first ones in. Well, second, my siblings came in first. You were right Dean, they loved it,” Cas can’t hide his happiness, and Dean can feel it infecting all of them, especially after so many weeks of anxiety over the crowd, his family, the placement of the art, all that was replaced by sheer joy radiating from his every pore, “Take a walk, let me know if you need anything. We’re about to let them in so…I’ll see you later.”

“Cas wait,” Dean pulls him back and kisses his temple softly, “so, so fucking proud of you.”

Cas holds onto Dean’s hands, staring at him, taking him in, and Dean just lets himself bask in the glow before Cas disappears to the front, getting ready to welcome the masses.

Dean walks around the gallery, taking in the different styles of art, the sculptures, the modern and the classic, the new and the old. He sees Cas from across the room, charming a group of older ladies, clearly buyers, and he smiles, because this whole thing is so amazing and he’s glad to be a part of it.

A minute later, someone touches his shoulder and he turns to see Cas himself, smiling, eyes bright.

“Can I introduce you to this group, they’re simply dying to meet the Dean I’ve been talking about.”

Dean is surprised, and that little part of him still wants to turn tail and run, but that’s just a tiny part of him now, something that doesn’t control him anymore.

“Yeah, I’d love that.”

Cas takes him by the hand and leads him over to the ladies he had been talking to.

“Ladies, this is my partner, Dean.”

Dean sort of wants to explode at the word partner, but he just smiles the professional smile he reserves for the landlord at the shop.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Well, Castiel can’t seem to get enough of you.”

Dean laughs to hide the little bit of discomfort that worms its way into his chest. As much as he likes turning heads, he does not like being the center of attention. He told Cas that once, and that had not changed, but these ladies seem nice enough.

“Well I’m lucky to have him, this project has been his life for so long, it’s amazing to actually see it up.”

The ladies coo at this, and Cas gives Dean the kind of radiant smile that makes Dean feel like he’s worth a couple extra cents than normal.

“So Dean, Castiel tells us that you’re an artist yourself. What medium do you work in?”

“Oh well, I work in skin actually. I’m a tattoo artist.”

Humanity never ceases to surprise him, because he was absolutely expecting the ladies to get that disapproving look, where their noses raise slightly and they look down at them even though he’s about a foot taller than any of them. Instead, they look at him with interest, not disgust, and immediately start asking him more questions.

“How interesting, so we won’t see any of your work on the walls?”

“No ma’am, you won’t but I appreciate you asking, I like talking about my work.”

He gets trapped with the very chatty group for fifteen or so minutes as Cas gets pulled away by his assistant Hannah, something about someone wanting to know the price and history of one of the main sculptures. He gives Dean another one of those smiles, and Dean can’t stop smiling himself as the group chatters at him, asking him a million questions until he’s saved by Eileen and Sam walking in.

“Wow,” Sam exclaims, looking around at the gallery, “this is amazing!”

“Yeah, he really nailed it,” Dean gives Eileen a hug and claps Sam on the shoulder.

“How’s it going?” Eileen asks, gripping his hand as he lets her go. He’s very grateful for her, Sam, as usual, picked a good one.

“Good I guess, he’s barely had time to look at me so I’m assuming it’s all going to plan. He was so nervous that no one was going to show up, but Charlie really put the word out, so I’m not surprised by the turnout, I told him not to worry.”

“It really does look great, the whole thing is amazing.”

“Well you missed Benny and Andrea, had to get back to the sitter, you know. But Pam’s here somewhere, so’s Charlie. I can’t help you with any of the art but I can try and get Cas away if you do need help.”

He laughs at his own joke, and even though Sam rolls his eyes, he can’t help but think that this kind of happiness was something he had always wanted for Sam, and now he had it for himself too.

Predictably, he loses Sam and Eileen pretty quickly, as usual they’re in their own little world. Probably looking for a painting with plants they can discuss or something, the nerds. Dean finds himself wandering around, staring at the paintings he’s been looking at for like three weeks, since Cas needed him there morning, noon, and night to set things up, hear his opinions on placement, things that Dean would never in a million years had an opinion on before he met Cas.

As if on cue, Cas appears at Dean’s shoulder and, without saying a word, pulls him towards a more secluded corner of the gallery, so they can have a tiny moment alone before Hannah pulls him back to the crowds ravenous for the art on the walls, but Dean was ravenous for the piece of art in front of him. For the knit brows, for the set mouth, for the way he’s winding himself up for something. He wants to smooth the lines, make him less anxious, make Cas see the beauty of what he had created, and how many people clearly loved it.

“You killed it with this, Cas. I’m so proud of you.”

The brows don’t unknit with his words, so Dean reaches out and places his thumb gently on the space between Cas’ eyebrows, trying to smooth with physical touch.

“You can relax, you know, everything’s going great, they’re loving it.”

“I love you.”

It catches Dean off guard.

It’s a simple statement from Cas, something neither of them had ever actually said to each other, though Dean at least had thought it around ten million times. And for the first time in his too-long life, Dean does not want to run in the other direction. He wants to plant his feet and stay in this warm moment for the rest of eternity, with the man who looks like an angel, who has the purest heart, the strongest mind. And Dean leans in to kiss him, not to lead into anything else, just to kiss him, and when they break apart, before their little bubble can get broken by the noise of the crowd, of the city they both love, Dean says,

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is gonna be a little sappy, but I hope you'll indulge me.
> 
> When I started this, I thought it was going to be, at most, 30,000 words. I didn't think I had something much longer in me, and I was okay with that. But something about this Cas and this Dean really grabbed me, and here we are, 80,000 words later.
> 
> To every single one of you that read this, that took this journey with Cas and Dean, thank you. Thank you for your comments, your kudos, for spending your time with this story. Thank you for bearing with me with completely random updates and me yelling in the notes. I truly appreciate you all. <3
> 
> My third tattoo was an outline of Dean Winchester. He is with me wherever i go, and I love him forever.
> 
> Also, not to be the mom friend, but if you want to get a tattoo or a piercing, get one in a professional, sanitary shop, do your research, make sure the artist you pick can do the work you want, since it's going to be with you forever. Remember, good work ain't cheap and cheap work ain't good.
> 
> This is the end of this story for now (I may pick something up in this universe later!) but I have another AU in the works that I hope I can start posting soon.
> 
> Thank you guys so much again, and, if you have a second, consider finding me on [tumblr](https://heliodean.tumblr.com/), I'd love to talk to you guys!
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Lilly

**Author's Note:**

> Going to try and ACTUALLY post every week (most likely Fridays).
> 
> I'd love to talk to you about it, you can find me on tumblr at heliodean!


End file.
